ABOUT THE STORY
With dark and dreamy illustrations by Mexican illustrator/author Yuyi Morales and energizing rhymes fromPuerto Rican author Marisa Montes, this Halloween book takes the reader on an adventure where black cats yowl and skeletons dance through a fusion of Latinx cultures and practices. The rhyming story in verse mixes both English and Spanish words seamlessly transitioning from one to the next:”At medianoche midnight strikes/ The witching hour the werewolf likes.” It also delights with a surprise ending revealing what all of the spooky characters are scared of -- children!
This book can serve as a starting point for talking about the variety in global fall traditions, different ways Halloween is celebrated, and a bit about the Mexican aesthetic and practices of El Día de Los Muertos. As part of this, an important conversation about cultural appreciation versus appropriation can be sparked.
LEARNING THEMES
IDENTITY, HALLOWEEN, CULTURAL TRADITIONS, EL DÍA DE LOS MUERTOS, APPRECIATION V. APPROPRIATION, SOCIAL/EMOTIONAL LEARNING, RHYME
ABOUT THE CURRICULUM
Our curriculum and ongoing practices are rooted in emergent strategy: “the way complex systems and patterns arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions.” The interactions we have with books, among reading partners, inside classrooms, and within reading communities are relatively simple. What is cultivated from those interactions is something much more complex – lifelong, daily abolitionist, decolonizing, heart/body-centered, and anti-racist practices. These include learning how to make the ground more fertile for ongoing identity, healing, discussion, action, and imagination practices in ourselves and with each other.
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