A GREAT CROSS CULTURAL,MULI-ETHNIC,NON SEXUAL STEREOTYPING TALE.
THE BOOK KEPT BOTH MY KIS AND I CAPTIVATED FROM START TO FINISH. THANK YOU MS. GERSON;ALSO,GREAT ILLUSTRATIONS!

It is a beautiful re-telling of Mexican folktales. I loved the colorful illustrations and the emphasis on women. I was impressed by the careful way the stories were authenticated. I think that children will really benefit from reading this book, both in terms of pleasure and in feeling more familiar with Mexican culture.
My favorite stories were Rosha and the Sun, and the Virgin of Guadelupe but all eight stories were wonderful.
The most impressive aspect of this book is the writing. It is perfectly attuned to the age 8 and older group it is aimed at, with flowing prose that beautifully captures its Mexican themes. The writer clearly knows Mexico very well.
I highly recommend this book.

I highly recommend this wonderful book. Mary-Joan Gerson has the rare ability to re-tell indigenous folktales in a manner that is both respectful and authentic. Moreover, she captures the passion, intensity and mysticism unique to Mexican tales, having travelled there extensively. Kids, adults interested in Latin American and/or folktales, and/or anyone with a sense of wonder will enjoy this immensely. The illustrations are beautiful too.

I have been planning a dinner party and this book has been so helpful. It not only gives great recipes, but also decorating tips and ideas for having a mexican party. It will be a great addition to my cookbook collection.

Simple American cuisine with Mexican embellishments: that's the theme of Fiesta Mexicali, a collection of innovative dishes blending Californian with Mexican innovations. From a Raspberry Margarita to Margarita Chicken and Roasted Garlic Chicken Quesadilla, plenty of delightful dishes are packed into an inviting, easily reproduced set of recipes.

Fiesta Mexicali showcases fresh ideas and inventive recipes with an emphasis on light and healthy eating with a very special Mexican-American zest and flavor. From Margarita Rumba; Machaca Mini-Chimichangas; and Incredible Green Chile Stew; to Grilled Carne Asada Tortas with Caramelized Onions; Baja Tacos with Chipotle Ranch Dressing; and Firebreathing Glazed Chipotle Chicken Skewers, Fiesta Mexicali offers highly recommended dishes that would please even the most fervent Mexican cuisine enthusiasts. In addition to an outstanding section devoted to cocktails and fiesta meal time decorating ideas, Fiesta Mexicali is additionally enhanced with a list of resources and a "user friendly" index.

Being from Mannhattan NY. I am unfamiliar with south western style cooking as it is really supposed to be. I was recently given this book by a friend as a CHRISTMAS GIFT. I was'nt sure if I could achieve success in the kitchen with this book as I am adept at making matzaballs and corned beef and potatoes being of New York Jewish descent and all. After trying some of the recipies like Chile Colorado and Tortillas I felt like a pro. A regular Latina Kitchen sensation. The recipies are easy to follow and well written. The south western familiy history told by the author actually makes me feel like I am part of the culture as I read the tales that Mrs. Romero weaves about her heritage. Excellent book you'll love it.

I am a native of New Mexico and have loved the cooking of this region all my life. Having moved to Arizona as a young child, it was hard to find mexican food that tastes like "New Mexican" food. There is a difference and reading this book and using the recipes have allowed me to taste the original flavors in my own home. Not only are the recipes original and delicious, but the story of this family is especially interesting and in itself "flavorfull". Great book!

What a great book! Ms. Romero has included some fantastic, authentic dishes that are tasty and easy to prepare. I'm a guy and not all that gifted in the kitchen, but her book makes me look like a hero with all of my family and friends. I told my wife that my recipes are family recipes--I just didn't tell her whose family.

The family history in the book is extremely interesting, too.

You should buy this book and get cooking.

This wonderful cookbook is part history book ( of Zarela Martinez' family and experiences in Mexico) as well as being a great book full of wonderful recipes. These recipes are "authenically Mexican" as opposed to being an Americanized version of Mexican food (which is what you are liable to find here in America.) Her subsequent books on Oaxaca and Veracruz are also worth checking out.

I purchased this book after having checked it out of the library and finding I could not let it go -- paid a heavy fine to the library, too! This book is now the most often used in my kitchen. I love to read the author's childhood memories and the background she sets up for the recipes. The recipes are not too complicated, and I have not tried one that has not been a winner! I understand it is now out of print, but I would highly recommend it to anyone who can aquire it!

I borrowed the book to learn more about tamales/ but found myself actually reading the book. Excellent. I now want to own it.

We've heard about the Hollywood Ten and other Communists and those suspected of Communist activities who sought haven in Mexico in the 1950s. What happened to these people and their families as they struggled to earn a living in an alien culture, always fearful of being deported? Diana Anhalt, who was 10 years old when her parents left the Bronx for Mexico City, has tracked down many of these people and their families whom she knew from her childhood. The stories she tells sound like they could have come from the movie scripts and other writings of the fugitives who gathered in Mexico. As a witness, she makes their stories come alive in a very personal book.

A Gathering Of Fugitives: American Political Expatriates In Mexico 1948-1965 by Diana Anhalt is a solid reference and historical narrative about a group of Americans (ranging from Spanish Civil War veterans, Communist Party organizers, Hollywood activists, and other post-World War II political dissidents) who went through political exile and expatriation in Mexico for a variety of different reasons. Their individual and community struggles to adapt, political clashes, along with the personal stories of some who returned to America are all covered in-depth in this most remarkable and recommended study.

I was motivated to read Diana Anhalt's book in almost one sitting. Having grown up in the setting she describes but being well sheltered from the events, I am very impressed by her very thorough research into the smallest details of the events. She is objective and points out the extent to which governments, including our own and not excluding others, will go to in order to protect their current objectives. It makes us painfully aware of how much we should or should not allow our government to do in the name of expediency.

This is a beautiful love story and very informative historically
The author describes events and characters like you were really there and knew these people.
I really enjoyed reading this novel. I couldn't hardly put the book down.This author is very impressive.

The author grabs your attention by setting you right in the excitement of New Mexico becoming a state, as seen through the eyes of a young woman and her family. Mardee has a captivating personality that draws you into her adventures and her loves, with an ambition beyond her era. The history of NM and descriptions of her beautiful mountains are wonderfully woven throughout the book. You won't want to put the book down. I am waiting for a sequel.

"Girl of the Manzanos" is an amazing story. Even though I am not finished reading it yet, this story grabbed my attention the first time I picked it up to read it. This story is insightful, and I think young boys, and especially young girls, can relate to the main character, Mardee. Barbara Spencer Foster did an amazing job writing "Girl of the Manzanos." It was obviously hard work writing such a good story, but she managed to do it successfully. I think everyone should read "Girl of the Manzanos."

I went to Honduras on a short term mission trip last year and I've seen poverty first hand. This book has opened my eyes even further of the rural poor of Honduras. This is the story of a courageous woman who is helping her people overcome their unimaginable poverty by discovering the roots of it.
In a subtle sense she denounces short term mission projects....that we come in to countries like hers and try to put a band-aid on a skull fracture. Americans, like myself, come into these third-world countries thinking we are fixing a country's problems in a couple weeks by donating old Gap t-shirts and building a few houses and then leaving. She urges the fact that if we are to really help the poor, we need to make a long-term commitment to get at the root of the problems. Shes not asking for sympathy, but for us to join us in her struggle. Get this book if you are ready to make a difference.

this is the ultimate story of courage. this woman has so much to share with you. you will be changed by it. Fast read.

A truly great read. Luckily, this book was assigned in my sociology class or else I probably would have never read it. It gives you an accurate portrait of peasant life in Honduras. If you want to be inspired read this book. After reading this book I feel like going down there to help them in some way. Her book is put in very simple terms and it is easy to see the injustices going on in her land. If you don't read it tell someone about the book. THANK YOU ELVIA!

Mr. Guzman wrote an interesting and very readable account of his adventures during the Mexican Revolution, but many have failed to recognize that Guzman, himself, considered this an historical novel and NOT a history of the revolution. If you wish more accuracy in describing events of the revolution, look elsewhere.

The Eagle and the Serpent is arguably the greatest book of the literature of the Mexican Revolution. It tells the story of a young student's involvement in the uprising that shook Mexico from 1910-1920 and his incredible adventures with the great "heroes" of the Revolution. Guzmán has an incredibly fluid and poetic style with which he paints detailed portraits of the political and social situation in Mexico at the beginning of the 20th century. He amazes the reader with an artistry and wit that runs throughout his accounts of the famous places and people of the Revolution. If you're not familiar with Mexican Liturature, this is a great place to start your journey: you may never come back!

The author recounts his experiences as an influential ideologist of the Mexican revolution. The adventures he narrates are often hard to believe. The atrocities of Villa. The stubborness of Carranza. The humbleness of the Zapatistas. Countless betrayals on the quest for Mexico City, the golden trophy for all.

Through the eyes of a child, one explores his world of discovery which includes the spider's web and the wasp's sting, but in the center of his world is his mother. "web center" opens the reader's exploration of nine short stories in this literary treasure. Each story speaks to different experiences of life's journey.

The "Ordeal of the Arrow" depicts the experiences of young boys' summer camp and their challenges to succeed in not only starting a fire with one match but also in becoming men facing failure and friendship. Many of the charachters are off beat. The reader glimpses the inside of the restaurant kitchen with the interaction of cooks, managers and waitresses, as well as an artist trying to break into the art world. Other characters tug on your heart strings in their struggles with life.

Each story presents us with a different look into the experiences that shape our lives with all the various textures woven into individual patterns.

Steven Blackburn demonstrates a wonderful talent in illustrating atmosphere, characterization and straight-forward storytelling in his first collection of short stories. He also has a remarkable ability to show a kind of emotional diversification; from the humorous "Ordeal of the Arrow", to the culturally atmospheric "Extinction of Rhinos in Mexico", to the emotionally powerful "Carrion Birds" and "Guardian", to especially the character-driven (and by far the best in his collection) "Smell of a Christian".

And yet, all nine of these tales have a universitality flavor about them that can appeal to any reader; especially to any aspiring writer who is seeking his/her own voice.

As a fellow writer, I strongly recommend this book.

The Extinction of Rhinos in Mexico is Stephen Blackburn's first short story collection. Here's hoping that there are many more.

Many of the newest generation of writers who have graduated from M.F.A. programs dwell on interior monologues where nothing of substance happens. Don't let Stephen Blackburn's M.F.A. degree fool you. His world is one of action and choices, where young men wonder how they can become men and Mexican woman struggle with the real life and death adversary that is poverty.

At first glance, it is easy to compare Blackburn to Hemingway. The stories are billed as "nine tales of life and death." Blackburn writes in a sparse, less-is-more style that sticks to the story and lets the narrative drive, not literary fireworks, draw the reader in. He is a journeyman who has worked jobs ranging from laborer to freelance writer, lived in foreign countries, traveled extensively, and his work has a freshness of a man who knows of what he writes.

While a comparison to Hemingway may seem like quick praise for a writer's first book, the comparison doesn't do Blackburn's work justice in the end. Although the collection has a peppering of vivid, slice-of-life stories featuring young males as they come of age in South Texas, Blackburn is not stuck on any one theme or point of view. He writes the voices of young boys making sense of a miscarriage, middle-aged women struggling as artists, and a poor woman in Mexico. And through these voices we travel to new worlds and live the lives of those who inhabit them.

For me, the greatest example and the crown jewel of the collection is the title story, "The Extinction of Rhinos in Mexico." We hear the story of a dirt poor Mexican woman as she struggles alone in a cruel world to nurse her pregnancy to fruition. Told in the first person, using the woman's own voice, the reader slowly slips into her language, her cadence, her world. I especially liked his use of casually observed details that seem so perfectly real. For example, when the woman unexpectedly finds herself sitting behind her cheating husband and his girlfriend on the bus, Blackburn writes:

"His eyes changed when he saw me, but he is a man, so he did not flinch when his woman, not knowing who I was, chose the seats right in front of me. They sat down side by side, Justino by the window, and the bus started again. My husband paid the boy for their fares and then leaned over to her and whispered something in her ear. Her head bowed for a moment. Even from where I sat I could smell the mezcal on his breath.

We rode for a few miles and then his woman let her right hand hang down over the seat rail, almost touching the floor. Before I realized what was occurring, she gave my ankle a vicious pinch.

That was all, nothing more, but well, I'm ashamed to tell you a fury overtook me. And so I yanked the black tresses of that woman in my callused fingers, and we got into it right there on the bus."

Although, it is a world I know almost nothing about, I realized that I recognized these people, because I recognized the human nature that Blackburn revealed. And isn't that what great art does.

The heartbreaking ending of "The Extinction of Rhinos in Mexico" left a lump in my throat for the rest of the afternoon. As I reflected on the story, I realized Blackburn had given me the rarest gift any writer can; he moved me.

Here's hoping he's working on his second collection.