{"id":34468,"date":"2014-09-06T11:01:20","date_gmt":"2014-09-06T15:01:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/?p=34468"},"modified":"2014-09-06T11:18:56","modified_gmt":"2014-09-06T15:18:56","slug":"larry-and-friends-created-and-illustrated-by-carla-torres-story-by-nat-jaspar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/larry-and-friends-created-and-illustrated-by-carla-torres-story-by-nat-jaspar\/","title":{"rendered":"Larry and Friends created and illustrated by Carla Torres, story by Nat Jaspar"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Larry<\/a>Happy, happy to Larry who’s celebrating his birthday. He’s not so thrilled about having “to work like a dog”\u00a0\u2013 even though that’s exactly what he is\u00a0\u2013 to prepare\u00a0for his natal fest, but he’s so “very excited” that all his friends are coming. Being a native New Yorker, Larry’s got buddies\u00a0from all over the world, “each of them unique and wonderful, including one that holds the key to his heart.” [No spoilers as to\u00a0who that may be!]\n

Ring\u00a0after doorbell ring, Larry’s friends arrive one by one, with an immigration story from\u00a0most, and a birthday gift from all. Magda the Polish pig \u2013 sent solo to the U.S. by her parents from Krak\u00f3w\u00a0\u2013\u00a0is the first to arrive. She’s followed by Henrik the Irish hare who eschews speed, Sumita the Indian elephant who lost the rest of\u00a0her traveling circus, and Bernard the French gargoyle who was inspired by Parisian tourists to leave\u00a0Notre Dame for NYC. Then comes\u00a0Rimshi the Tibetan yak who was forced out of her\u00a0homeland to wander as a refugee, Jin the Korean fox who came to\u00a0Flushing so her art could grow, Laila the Iranian cat who always\u00a0felt slightly out of place, and many others.<\/p>\n

Other well-wishers\u00a0with faraway roots but\u00a0local origins\u00a0(reminding us of our nation-of-immigrants status) include Fu the Chinese dragon from Chinatown, Fabio the Italian American ram whose family still lives in Little Italy, Ulises the Greek owl from Astoria, and Igor the Russian bear who’s lived\u00a0in Brighton Beach since\u00a0he was very young. Unable to attend in livetime, Pedro the Ecuadorian guinea pig calls in from London, where he’s touring with his world-famous band and\u00a0enjoying the\u00a0peripatetic freedom he didn’t have growing up because his father “made a mistake in the immigration forms when the family moved to the US, leaving the poor guinea pig without papers.”<\/p>\n

As inclusive as the stories are, the book is\u00a0not without a few eyebrow-raisers: while everyone else can claim a specific country, why is Gugu the African zebra representing an entire continent? Why, with so many other New York-born friends, is Fabio the only hybrid American<\/em>: he’s Italian American, but Fu, Ulises, Igor, and others remain labelled as foreigners. And is Ashki the Native American buffalo who “is seldom in New York … [who] has few earthly possessions besides his wisdom,” meant\u00a0to be\u00a0homeless? Also discomfiting are a\u00a0number of the four-legged stereotypical avatars, most notably Rosita the Mexican coyote who is ironically\u00a0meant to be offended by the stereotype, who refers\u00a0to her “tough trip from Mexico guided by some chicken people that dared to call themselves coyotes.”<\/p>\n

Narrative quibbles,\u00a0yes, but the illustrations are undoubtedly the book’s high point, saturated in color,\u00a0whimsy, humor, and such intricate\u00a0details. So, too, the book was clearly an all-community effort. Two New York transplants, illustrator Carla Torres<\/a> from Ecuador and writer Nat Jaspar<\/a> from Belgium by way of Venezuela, ran a successful Kickstarter campaign<\/a>\u00a0to get Larry<\/em> on the page, in both Spanish and English versions<\/a>. Gratitude is clear: “It is so good to know Larry has so many friends that made this book possible,” the first sentence after the title page proclaims. For Larry and his 21 friends, the party is clearly on…<\/p>\n

Readers<\/strong>: Children<\/p>\n

Published<\/strong>: 2014<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Happy, happy to Larry who’s celebrating his birthday. He’s not so thrilled about having “to work like a dog”\u00a0\u2013 even though that’s exactly what he is\u00a0\u2013 to prepare\u00a0for his natal fest, but he’s so “very excited” that all his friends are coming. Being a native…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34475,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[62,6,199,201],"tags":[6608,5942,59,11,25,5941,5943,64],"class_list":["post-34468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-children-picture-books","category-fiction","category-latinaox","category-south-american","tag-bookdragon","tag-carla-torres","tag-cultural-exploration","tag-friendship","tag-immigration","tag-larry-and-friends","tag-nat-jaspar","tag-pets-animals"],"yoast_head":"\nLarry and Friends created and illustrated by Carla Torres, story by Nat Jaspar - BookDragon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/larry-and-friends-created-and-illustrated-by-carla-torres-story-by-nat-jaspar\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Larry and Friends created and illustrated by Carla Torres, story by Nat Jaspar - BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Happy, happy to Larry who’s celebrating his birthday. 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