Book Description
for Magic Windows by Carmen Lomas Garza
From Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC)
Illustrations using papel picado, or cut-paper art, demonstrate what Lomas Garza’s words say to young readers about her Mexican American heritage. Readers find out about her work as an artist through the subjects she chose to interpret here, from turkeys and cacti to dancing and Day of the Dead to a stunning visual tribute to her gardening grandfather. Lomas Garza’s pride in her Aztec roots and birth family inform the artistry and experience she brought to the creation of the papel picado reproduced in this slim bilingual volume. Information about papel picado in which cutting must be literally connected and examples of this exacting medium are contained here. This book about culture and art differs greatly from the paintings in her earlier autobiographical books Family Pictures / Cuadros de familia (1990) and In My Family / En mi familia (1996) also published by Children’s Book Press. (Ages 9-12)
CCBC Choices 2000. © Cooperative Children's Book Center, Univ. of Wisconsin - Madison, 2000. Used with permission.