Logo image
  • BookDragon
  • About
  • The Blogger
  • Review Policy
  • Smithsonian APAC
 
43724
post-template-default,single,single-post,postid-43724,single-format-standard,stardust-core-1.1,stardust-child-theme-ver-1.0.0,stardust-theme-ver-3.1,ajax_updown_fade,page_not_loaded,smooth_scroll

BookDragon Blog

20 Apr / Alma and How She Got Her Name by Juana Martinez-Neal [in Shelf Awareness]

For Alma Sofia Esperanza José Pura Candela, her oversized moniker is “‘so long … [i]t never fits.'” Her father knows something more: “Let me tell you the story of your name,” he offers, “Then you decide if it fits.”

Opening the family photo album, Daddy explains how Alma got each of her names: Sofia for her “books, poetry, jasmine flowers”-loving grandmother; Esperanza for her great-grandmother who hoped to travel the world; José for her artist grandfather; Pura for her great-aunt who “believed that the spirits of our ancestors are always with us”; and Candela for her activist “other” grandmother. With each ancestral tale, Alma enthusiastically underscores her direct connections to her familial inheritance. When Daddy finally arrives at how he chose “Alma,” she realizes her name “fits [her] just right,” with all the room she needs to write her own story.

Juana Martinez-Neal, who won a 2018 Pura Belpré Illustrator Award for La Princesa and the Pea by Susan Middleton Elya, makes her author/artist debut with a story of her own – literally. Alma and How She Got Her Name also doubles as a glimpse into Martinez-Neal’s multi-monikered background: her full name, Juana Carlota Martinez Pizarro, holds her own family history, which she shares in her author’s note. As artist, her mostly black-and-white graphite and colored pencil drawings with splashes of red (suggesting now) and blue (capturing then) provide an additional, enhancing narrative: the family’s Peruvian roots, Alma’s avian and floral interests, her bilingual drawings, her historically inspired style sense, even a peek at Esperanza’s worldly treasures.

Names are so much more than a collection of letters and sounds, Martinez-Neal reminds. The book’s final words, “What story would you like to tell?” become an invitation for readers to share and claim each of their own, distinctive stories, histories, and identities.

Discover: Young Alma’s full name might be very, very long, but so is the legacy of creativity, resilience, resistance, and love embedded in her multiple monikers

Review: “Children & Young Adult,” Shelf Awareness, April 20, 2018

Readers: Children

Published: 2018

By Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Latina/o/x, Repost, South American Tags > Alma and How She Got Her Name, BookDragon, Cultural exploration, Family, Grandparents, Historical, Juana Martinez-Neal, Parent/child relationship, Shelf Awareness
No Comment

Post a Comment
Cancel Reply

Smithsonian Institution
Asian Pacific American Center

Capital Gallery, Suite 7065
600 Maryland Avenue, SW
Washington, DC 20024

202.633.2691 | APAC@si.edu

Additional contact info

Mailing Address
Capital Gallery
Suite 7065, MRC: 516
P.O. Box 37012
Washington, DC 20013-7012

Fax: 202.633.2699

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram

SmithsonianAPA brings Asian Pacific American history, art, and culture to you through innovative museum experiences and digital initiatives.

About BookDragon

Welcome to BookDragon, filled with titles for the diverse reader. BookDragon is a new media initiative of the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center (APAC), and serves as a forum for those interested in learning more about the Asian Pacific American experience through literature. BookDragon is inhabited by Terry Hong.

Learn More

Contact BookDragon

Please email us at SIBookDragon@gmail.com

Follow BookDragon!
  • Twitter
  • Facebook

Looking for Something Else …?

or