28. My Name Is/ Me Llamo Celia

I did not grow up with Celia Cruz. Though her picture looks familiar to me, I would not be able to recognize her voice in a song. So, while reading this book I decided to watch some of her videos. What I saw was a vibrant woman, full of energy, life, movement, power, etc.


That sense of Celia Cruz is shown in Monica Brown's book Me Llamo Celia (2004) illustrated by Rafael Lopez. The cover art jumps out at you right away-- Lopez uses acrylic paints to cover ever single page with vibrancy and movement. His lines often swirl and curl, sweeping our eyes across the pages, turning to find out the rest of the story. Even the endpages have life to them, beautiful swaths of bright colors. The colors in the book are layered, with bright circles often lying on top of people's cheeks and brilliant symbols of life sprinkled across the page. Lopez uses almost an abstract style of painting (it reminded me a little of Picasso) with shapes playing an important role and playing with perspectives. There is so much going on in the art that you can tell a story from the lush, detailed paintings.

But you can't forget the words...a bilingual book (yay!), this story is told in the first person as you hear Celia Cruz tell you about her life. It is written in a rhythmic style, almost as if the salsa infused the words. Brown starts out with feeling and sensory images 

"My voice feels like feet skipping on cool wet sand, like running under a waterfall, like rolling down a hill."

---

"Boom boom boom! beat the congas.

Shake shake shake! go the hips."

that invite us to listen to her and dance with her. The words and images complement each other so well in this book, making the reader feel full of life and ready to move! You could swear you hear music coming from the pages! The book then turns into a heartfelt biography, full of difficult times and perseverance. While I'm sure there are biographies that provide more details about her life out there, this one makes you feel what it would be like to actually live her life, which I think is even cooler.


In the classroom, you could take this text many ways. One that stands out to me is using it for writing, as a mentor text. I teach students to use sensory images in their stories and create a voice...this book is teeming with both. It would also be a great book to look at the issue of racism in other countries, how skin tone matters even when everyone is brown. You could use it in a unit on biographies or music. Finally, you could look at the strength of her personality and discuss positive character traits. Now that I know a little more about her, I admire her and wish I could have a little bit of 'azúcar' in me, too.