Available:*
Library | Call Number | Status |
---|---|---|
Searching... Park Grove Library (Cottage Grove) | J FICTION CAN | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Stillwater Public Library | J FICTION CAN | Searching... Unknown |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
Sofia comes from a family of storytellers. Here are her tales of growing up in the barrio in McAllen, Texas, full of the magic and mystery of family traditions: making Easter cascarones, celebrating el Dia de los Muertos, preparing for quinceañera, rejoicing in the Christmas nacimiento, and curing homesickness by eating the tequila worm. When Sofia is singled out to receive a scholarship to boarding school, she longs to explore life beyond the barrio, even though it means leaving her family to navigate a strange world of rich, privileged kids. It's a different mundo, but one where Sofia's traditions take on new meaning and illuminate her path.
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
This tender first novel suffers somewhat from an awkward structure. Narrator Sofia, whose life story hews closely to the author's own Texas barrio-to-Harvard Law trajectory, begins by relating quotidian childhood experiences as vignettes. Three successive chapters go from first communion to dyeing Easter cascarones to trick-or-treating. A quarter of the way into the novel, she is suddenly 14 and has been offered a scholarship to a boarding school in Austin, Tex., 350 miles from her home in McAllen. The loosely connected anecdotes then shift to a conventional narrative thread about convincing her parents to let her attend. What will keep readers enthralled are the details of Sofia's home life-from the sobremesa, a "sacred time" after dinner in which the family reconnects through conversation, to the worm of the title, a critter soaked in mescal that acts as a "cure for homesickness" when eaten. Readers may well feel unprepared for both a death at novel's end and Sofia's out-of-the-blue neighborhood activism-but the characters are real and engaging, the vignettes funny and enlightening, and Sofia's lack of cynicism is refreshing. Ages 12-up. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
Family and storytelling have always been the two most important aspects of Sofia's life. After a childhood in the barrio chronicled here in entertaining vignettes, she accepts a scholarship to a boarding school. She leaves home and family behind but takes the stories with her. This engaging story is humorous, vivid, and poignant. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
Gr. 6-9. From an early age, Sofia has watched the comadres in her close-knit barrio community, in a small Texas town, and she dreams of becoming someone who makes people into a family, as the comadres do. The secret, her young self observes, seems to lie in telling stories and being brave enough to eat a whole tequila worm. In this warm, entertaining debut novel, Canales follows Sofia from early childhood through her teen years, when she receives a scholarship to attend an exclusive boarding school. Each chapter centers on the vivid particulars of Mexican American traditions--celebrating the Day of the Dead, preparing for a cousin's quinceanera. The explanations of cultural traditions never feel too purposeful; they are always rooted in immediate, authentic family emotions, and in Canales' exuberant storytelling, which, like a good anecdote shared between friends, finds both humor and absurdity in sharply observed, painful situations--from weathering slurs and other blatant harassment to learning what it means to leave her community for a privileged, predominately white school. Readers of all backgrounds will easily connect with Sofia as she grows up, becomes a comadre, and helps rebuild the powerful, affectionate community that raised her. --Gillian Engberg Copyright 2005 Booklist
School Library Journal Review
Gr 5-8-Another young adult novel that explores the diversity of the Latino experience is The Tequila Worm. This 2006 Pura Belpre award-winning book is now available in a Spanish translation. Like Yaqui, Viola Canales's title is steeped with the rich traditions of Latino family life. In Sofia, readers discover another young Latina protagonist who is trying to find her identity in a multicultural world. Sofia struggles to decide if she should leave the insular and safe environment of her extended family to attend a boarding school. While this main character isn't dealing with a physical predicament, her dilemma is wrenching, nonetheless. Her family has a strong hold upon her, but Sofia knows that if she is to succeed, she's going to have to get an education. (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Sofia, growing up in an urban Latino neighborhood in McAllen, Texas, has a chance to attend an expensive boarding school in Austin on scholarship. Like her father, Sofia lives the life of the mind, rich with story and possibility. How can she convince her mother to let her take this opportunity? By learning to dance and showing her that she can leave home and still learn to become a good comadre. Canales, the author of the story collection Orange Candy Slices and Other Secret Tales (2001), is a graduate of Harvard Law School, suggesting that Sofia's story at least closely parallels her own. She is an accomplished storyteller, though not yet, perhaps, a successful novelist. The episodic narrative has disconcerting leaps in time at the beginning, and a sense of completion, or a moral displayed, at several points throughout--all lacking the tension to carry the reader forward. This said, the characters and setting are so real to life that readers who connect with Sofia at the start will find many riches here, from a perspective that is still hard to find in youth literature. (Fiction. 10-14) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Excerpts
Excerpts
The Storyteller's Bag In the evenings when the cool breeze began to blow, all the families came out to their porches to sit and talk, to laugh and gossip. And that is where and how our barrio became one family. Dona Clara visited every summer and no one missed her stories, for she came carrying a bag filled with secret things that conjured up the most amazing tales. Clara had a square face on top of a big round body, and the biggest eyes and the widest mouth: she was especially proud of her catfish mouth, which she painted scarlet. She wore a big black onyx tongue around her neck. "This," she said, "is the symbol of a storyteller. It has been handed down from generation to generation, for hundreds of years." When asked where she'd come from, she'd roll her eyes, pitch her arms up to the night sky, and point to the stars with her long scarlet fingernails. So the other kids and I believed she'd just flown down from a star. Then she'd shake her many wooden bracelets and thrust her hand into her mysterious bag. She rattled her things around as we stared, bug-eyed. Clara sucked her front teeth, batted her eyes, and then slowly started lifting something out of her bag. You could hear your blood go thump! thump! thump! Once, she pulled out a three-inch lock of hair. "This belonged to Mama Maria, your great-great-grandmother." As the lock of dark hair made its way from hand to hand, person to person, Clara said, "Your Mama Maria was a mule. Always kicking her way through things. A force to behold! But beautiful, with the darkest eyes and long, wild Apache hair. This hair. "And you, Sofia"--Clara pointed at me--"not only look like her, but have inherited her gift for mule-kicking." I gasped. My cousin Berta laughed. Papa was sitting beside me on top of an upside-down pail. "Mi'ja, don't look so worried. This is a good thing--for things to kick will come your way in many shapes and sizes. You'll see." Next Clara pulled out a jar full of big mule teeth with a piece of a blue balloon inside. "I always show the hair and teeth and blue balloon together," she said, "for the teeth belonged to Papa Carlos, your great-great-grandfather, Mama Maria's husband, and he gave this blue balloon to her when they met and fell in love in a little Mexican plaza far away. The town plaza, in those days, was where people gathered to tell their tales." Oh no! I thought. Please don't say I inherited those teeth, too! But Clara pointed at Berta, who bit her lip and covered her big mouth with her hand. Now I laughed. "Hija, the big teeth are a good gift too," said Berta's mother, T'a Belia, "if you learn to use them right." And as the jar of teeth made its way around, Clara told us, "Look closely at them, for they once bit a rattlesnake in half, chewed a mountain of tobacco, and helped yell out the longest string of insults imaginable. "Yes, kicking and biting like mules runs deep in our blood. Never forget that, for it might come in handy someday." The things Clara pulled out of her bag included chipped saints, wacky handmade dolls, arrowheads, recipes, cracked old photos of stiff people, and pictures of dead children, who looked beautiful and peacefully asleep. Clara always stayed a couple of days and then disappeared. "I have to go visit other families, other barrios, for it's important that they also hear these stories." But before leaving she'd reach into her bag one last time to pull out a tiny bottle of mescal. She'd take a hairpin and fish out the tequila worm swimming inside. "This will cure my homesickness as I travel to my next family," Clara would say, popping the tequila worm into her mouth and chewing. She swallowed loudly as we stared. I was amazed. Sick, too. "Now, is there some story you want me to tell as I continue on my journey?" I'd shake my head. There was nothing I'd want her to tell, at least nothing that could possibly compare with the stories that went with the big teeth, the lock of hair, and especially the tequila worm. When I was about six, Clara came to visit as usual, but this time she was in a wheelchair. And when we gathered around her on the porch, we saw that her big mouth had collapsed into a thin line and her popping eyes gazed out at nothing. Mama kissed Clara's trembling white hair and placed her story bag at the center of the porch. She reached inside and slowly pulled out her cupped hand. There was nothing in it. But Mama handed the invisible thing to me and said, "Here is the ceramic baby Jesus for the manger of the Christmas nacimiento your abuelita builds each year. It represents the vivid image Clara gave me of my great-grandmother Maria, who I never met, but who I feel close to through her story: about how she worked for weeks, making tamales and then going door to door selling them so she could buy a brand-new baby Jesus for her daughter, my mother, who was appointed the Christmas madrina, the godmother for baby Jesus that year." This image was passed around from hand to hand, person to person. "Sofia, you're next!" Mama said. "Reach into the bag and see what secret is inside for you." I put my hand in and felt all around. Empty. I pulled out my cupped hand and showed everyone. I hesitated, then turned to look at Clara. "This is the black onyx tongue that Clara still wears around her neck. I look at it and remember all the stories Clara has told us. Our stories." "Yes," said Mama. "Clara is a perfect example of a good comadre." "A good comadre?" I said. Excerpted from The Tequila Worm by Viola Canales All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.