Multicultural: Growing up with Tamales by Gwendolyn Zepeda

Growing up with Tamales is a great book for students to read of all races. The book actually has the same paragraph written twice but the first is in English and the second in Spanish. I think having both languages would really benefit students who speak Spanish; I feel that they could relate more to the author. When I read books, I like to read stories about my culture because some of things that they mention, a person wouldn't understand unless they were the same culture as me. The author speaks about a young girl, Ana who is six and her sister Lidia which is eight, and a Christmas tradition in their family which is making Tamales. When they cook the tamales, depending on their age they can only do so much. Seeing that Lidia is the oldest, she gets to help in the kitchen more than Ana. Ana can't wait until she is her sister's age so that she can do more in the kitchen when they make tamales. So as she sits in the kitchen and daydreams, she thinks of all the things she could do when she gets older. When she turns eight she will do what her sister is doing now, but a lot more. Then she wonders, well what her sister will be doing when she gets older. So she continues to day dream until her sister turns eighteen. During the years, she names the things she will be learning such as when she gets sixteen, they will be able to drive to the store and buy the ingredients for the tamales. Then, she doesn't know what her sister will be doing because there are so many things she could do. Will she go off to school, move into her own home and make her own tamales? Nobody knows just yet. However, Ana knows what she wants to do and that's have her own tamales factory and deliver them to people all over the world. This book shows the readers that as they get grow and get older, how the responsibilities that they have grow as well. When I read this story, I was able to go back to my childhood and remember all of the things that I had to watch my older sister do that I couldn't. I remember wishing that I was her age so I could help my family with things that I was too young for. In the story she mentions that when she turns fourteen, she will be able to hold her cousin baby and I can recall when I was too young to hold my nieces. This is a great book for students to read and learn about the responsibilities of their elders.