Guatemala Trips :: Sawdust Carpets

Guatemala Trips - Sawdust Carpets

List Price: $16.95
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Manufacturer: Groundwood Books

Average Customer Rating:

Binding: Hardcover
EAN: 9780888996251
ISBN: 088899625X
Label: Groundwood Books
Manufacturer: Groundwood Books
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 32
Publication Date: 2005-02-10
Publisher: Groundwood Books
Reading Level: Ages 4-8
Studio: Groundwood Books

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Editorial Reviews:

The Lau family travels to Antigua, Guatemala to visit their cousins. Although the Laus are Chinese and Buddhist, they adore the pageantry of Easter, and Easter in Antigua is exciting, with long, elaborate processions of penitents wreathed in incense and carrying colonial Spanish statues down the cobblestone streets of the city. The best part is seeing the elaborate carpets made of colored sawdust, which the processions walk over and destroy. On the morning of the most important procession, the heroine is invited to make her very own sawdust carpet. But why, she wonders, make something so beautiful, only to have it be ruined?

Guatemalan and Chinese religious observances, dragon boat races and Easter processions, piñatas, baptisms, and Chinese tamales all weave in and out of this story, which celebrates beauty, religious celebration, and tolerance.

Spotlight customer reviews:

Customer Rating:

Summary: a guatemalan story!
Comment: Our family has enjoyed this book.
We spent 8 months living in beautiful Antigua last year and this book brought back memories for us!
As a mother of 5 Guatemalan children - I found this book a delightful way to introduce our children to the tradition of Semana Santa ( holy week).
We have enjoyed Ms. Carling's book and would recommend it to anyone hoping to introduce young children to the traditions found in Guatemala.

Customer Rating:

Summary: A Multicultural Holy Week
Comment: The girl's family is visiting her aunt's family in Antigua for Holy Week because her baby cousin is going to be baptized on Easter. The tradition of glorious sawdust carpets, temporary art (like Navajo sand paintings) meant to be destroyed by the processions, is seen though her eyes. She is sad at her carpet's destruction, but able by Easter to plan next year's design. The rugs, a neighbor tells her, are "offerings to life."

There are very few good picture books about Easter, outside of retellings of the Easter story itself, that give a hint at the feast's religious depths (Eric Kimmel's The Birds' Gift, Patricia Polacco's Chicken Sunday). This belongs on that select list. It's not for the sort of conservative Christian who looks negatively at other religious traditions. (On a shelf in the cousins' house, there "stood the Virgin of Guadalupe next to the Kuan Yin, our Chinese goddess. I thought they looked like friends. Incense swirled around them, bringing them together.") Liturgical Christians will appreciate it as the only picture book that connects Easter with baptism!

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