Festival of the Bones/El festival de
las calaveras: The Little-Bitty Book for Day of the Dead
Book Review:
The Festival of Bones: El festival de las calaveras: The Little-Bitty
Book of Day of the Dead was originally published in Mexico and is
now available in a bilingual format. This book is about the celebration
of the Day of the Dead/El día de los muertos, which is
a holiday celebrated in Mexico from October 31st to November 2nd. In
order for readers to fully understand The Festival of Bones,
it is best to be familiar with the celebration and learn the vocabulary
that is used in this book. However, The Festival of Bones includes
facts about the Day of the Dead/El día de los muertos
and how to celebrate this tradition.
Luis San Vicente is a respected artist and demonstrates his abilities
beautifully in The Festival of Bones. He uses scratchboard for
his illustrations, which reveals playfulness with charismatic skeleton
characters along with bold colors to catch the reader's eye. Each page
has fascinating illustrations that will lead readers to ask questions.
The book begins with a skeleton musician playing the guitar and singing
about the dead celebrating their day. The following pages are short
poems based on the different animated skeletal characters in the illustrations.
The Festival of Bones has both rhyming and repeating phrases.
However, reading this text in its original Spanish version, El festival
de las calaveras, is brilliant due to the flow of language. Luis
San Vicente has captured the Mexican celebration through his remarkable
illustrations and written work.
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