My Mexico / Mexico Mio

by Tony Johnston

Overview

Sway to the sounds, reach for the colors, dance to the rhythms, and you will find your own Mexico in these poems in both English and Spanish.

"Johnston regales the senses with idyllic scenes of streets lined with a rainbow of adobe houses, with the scent of roses growing in coffee cans and lilies in chile jars, and with the sounds of fields of corn shaking quietly in the warm wind. The overall impression is one of sunbaked cheerfulness, warmth, and color ably reinforced by Sierra's pastel-tinted artwork." —The Horn Book

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780698117570
Publisher:	Penguin Young Readers Group
Publication date:	02/15/1999
Edition description:	Bilingual Edition
Pages:	40
Sales rank:	1,004,878
Product dimensions:	8.00(w) x 10.00(h) x 0.14(d)
Lexile:	NP (what's this?)
Age Range:	2 - 5 Years

About the Author

Tony Johnston has worked at a children's book store, taught a course on picture book writing at UCLA, and studied poetry writing for children with Myra Cohn Livingston. Although she has published nearly seventy-five books, Johnston never stops working. She is grateful for the many ideas that come to her, for the chance to work toward what has become her life goal—to be a good storyteller.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Johnston regales the senses with idyllic scenes of streets lined with a rainbow of adobe houses, with the scent of roses growing in coffee cans and lilies in chile jars, and with the sounds of fields of corn shaking quietly in the warm wind. The overall impression is one of sunbaked cheerfulness, warmth, and color ably reinforced by Sierra's pastel-tinted artwork." —Horn Book

Editorial Reviews

Praise for Mexico Mio

"Johnston regales the senses with idyllic scenes of streets lined with a rainbow of adobe houses, with the scent of roses growing in coffee cans and lilies in chile jars, and with the sounds of fields of corn shaking quietly in the warm wind. The overall impression is one of sunbaked cheerfulness, warmth, and color ably reinforced by Sierra's pastel-tinted artwork."—Horn Book

From the Publisher

K-Gr 3-Sensitive, soft but bright illustrations in pencil over watercolor depict Mexican scenes in 16 double-page spreads. Printed over the backgrounds are 18 poems in both English and Spanish (no translator is credited, so presumably Johnston, who lived in Mexico for 15 years, wrote both versions). The poems are mostly free verse, although there is some use of rhyme. They deal with everyday subjects such as cockroaches or corn, or historical topics such as the Nahuatl language or the disappearance of the Aztecs. Johnston is not at her best in these poems, which are a trifle pedestrian. The illustrations have charm, although several of the contemporary settings are unrealistically tidy or depicted in a sanitized manner. Margo Griego's Tortillitas para Mama (Holt, 1981) presents 13 traditional rhymes and their English translations with appealing paintings of Mexican life.-Pam Gosner, Maplewood Memorial Library, NJ

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