Mi Familia Calaca/My Skeleton Family by Cynthia Weill (review)

Weil, noted for her concept books drawing on Oaxacan art, returns here with an offbeat bilingual easy reader. The text is simple: Anita, the narrator, introduces the reader to her family (“My brother Miguel. He’s a brat”), noting all the kids, parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and pets. There’s no story, but the voice is quite lively for such a list, casually varying phraseology and family groupings in ways that allow for additional vocabulary exploration. What really makes the book, however, are the titular skeletons, handmade figures by Zárate posed against attractive backgrounds in vibrant fiesta colors; subtle patterning below their feet suggests linoleum flooring, and kids will be tickled to realize that the attractive decorative asterisks aren’t snowflakes but bones. Zárate’s papier-mâché skeletons are less skeletal than some Day of the Dead celebrants, with cheerful faces drawn on their round heads and natty outfits rendering particularly festive, so the effect will be more ludicrous than spooky even for kids unfamiliar with the tradition. The contrast of the utterly straightforward text and the chipper cadaverous figures turns the everyday text into a poker-faced joke where the very ordinariness of the prose becomes funny (the skeletal cat and dog are particularly amusing); that contrast also cunningly removes any babyish implications from the simplicity of the vocabulary. This is therefore a witty backdoor beginning reader in two languages as well as an entertaining entry in a unit on the Day of the Dead.