Tales Our Abuelitas Told: A Hispanic Folktale Collection by F. Isabel Campoy and Alma Flor Ada

Tales Our Abuelitas Told, is a mixture of twelve popular tales celebrating the Hispanic culture and is many roots-Indigenous, African, Arab, Hebrew, and Spanish. Authors F. Isabel Campoy and Alma Flor Ada retold each of these stories that capture the heritage, emotions, and spirit of Latino people around the world. An introduction or "welcome" provides background information to the reader about folktales, their origin, and the influences that each have had on their lives. The authors also include the opening and ending lines of how these tales traditionally begin in the Spanish language, while writing the Spanish version and English-language equivalents in the sections, "To Begin a Story" and "To End a Story."

Examples:

Beginning: Habia una vez... Once upon a time..

Ending: ...y se acabo lo que se daba (and that is the end of all that has been told)

After each tale, the authors give background information about how the tale was derived and any other variations of the story that exist, along with any connections that they have to the story itself. Subject matter includes magical bandpipes, flying horses, talking ants, etc. In some cases, like many folktales, a moral is emphasized.

The authors note throughout the book that most of these stories were heard by them as children from their own grandmothers or "abuelitas." For example, "The Bird of One Thousand Colors" is a story that was told to Ada when she was a little girl, but she had never found the original source. She credits her grandmother, Dolores Salvador Mendez, who passed it on to her. Other stories were merely discovered throughout their research in writing the collection. Variations and changes in stories are also a result of transformations in oral retellings that occur between different cultures and areas of the world. Campoy and Ada note in their welcome that "many of the stories originated from in Spain, a land that has been a cultural crossroad throughout history. Since Spain is geographically close to Africa, it has served as a bridge between the continents of Europe and Africa, receiving influences from both and generating its own unique cultures." For example, in the story, "Dear Deer! Said the Turtle" (reminscent to "The Tortoise and the Hare) Campoy notes that this well-known story has gone through numerous transformations in its travels back and forth across the Atlantic. In the version found in Cuentos populares de Espana, the race was between a rabbit and a hedgehog, who, with the help of his wife, outwits the rabbit. The version told in The Tales Our Abuelitas Told comes from the Cuban oral tradition, with African elements. "The Castle of Chuchurume" is a story, similar to the English folktale "The House That Jack Built" and the African folktale, "The Great Rain on Kapiti Plain," with their cumulative verse. Instead of using the elements of a house, which is found in most versions, the authors substituted it with a castle, following the lead of the title given to this Mexican version of a nursery rhyme.

Sporadic, colorful illustrations by Felipe Davalos, Vivi Escriva, Susan Guevara, and Leyla Torres depict the humor and wit within the text of each folktale. Torres notes at the back of the book that she was inspired by the memory of the mountains, growing up in Bogota, Colombia, and the colorful clothes that women wear in the village markets. Guevara stated, " in this book I wanted to paint the giant threat of an angry, lazy wolf and the fiesty dance of a wily she-fox. I wanted to paint the flat, unreal appearance of color in the moonlight. I think these images have their roots in the magical realistm born out of Latino writing." It is clear that even the illustrators have brought in their own perspectives and experiences into their paintings, while creating their pieces of artwork for each folktale.

Tales Our Abuelitas Told demonstrates the power of storytelling and how folktales have evolved over time. Many are unknown of origin or have been simply passed down from word of mouth. Ada and Campoy captured the essence of tradition, heritage, and remembrance of the stories their abuelitas told them as young girls. I feel that this collection will make a great addition to my classroom library, as well as serving as a comparison for my students in the nursery rhymes and folktales that were passed on by our own ancestors.