I clearly had an amazing set of Spanish teachers throughout high school because I always, always, ALWAYS think about Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) leading up to Halloween. I love the connection to family with this holiday and that this is truly a celebration. I mean, what’s not to love about honoring the goodness from people who aren’t with us with their favorite things and delicious food? Doesn’t that just warm you up?!
My kiddos globbed onto the movie Coco and had so many intelligent follow-up questions. I want our kids to be exposed to holidays and religions and customs that aren’t familiar to them. The more we all know, the better. More knowledge, more love.
While my once pretty fantastic Spanish is a goner, I still have the strongest memory of the pan de muerto (dead bread) and I am on a legit hunt in the suburbs of Chicago to get my carb-lovin’ paws on some of this goodness.
Littles
Read The Day of the Dead by Bob Barner to help your smallest ones understand what this holiday is all about. The language is joyful and almost musical. Hope and Motor really liked this one!
Greg Paprocki’s Day of the Dead count and find book is gor-JUS! This is so beautifully illustrated and the items to seek out are slightly tricky to find even for a 4 year old. Nice! Also included in the back of the book is a glossary and additional items to find. Such a fun board book!
Cloverleaf Books never fail me. Daniela’s Day of the Dead by Lisa Bullard is fantastic for smalls to learn about this important holiday. There is such a great mix of story and facts (I read just the story to Hope and read the story + facts to Motor.) and the illustrations are gentle. What I really love about the text is that it reiterates many times that this isn’t a holiday to be scared of. I think with the skulls it can be slightly jarring if kiddos haven’t been exposed to the ‘why’ before. I loved this!
Roseanne Greenfield Thong’s Dia de los Muertos is a beautiful picture book with such sing-song-y text. The illustrations are child-like and the colors are beautiful. This book offers another look into the full celebration of the holiday!
Dios mio! (See? That Spanish is starting to come back!) The Dead Family Diaz by PJ Bracegirdle is such a fun take on Dia de los Muertos! The Diaz family are on the OTHER side of things – they are dead! So clever! The littlest Diaz family member is nervous about crossing over to the land of the living and has all sorts of scary worries cooked up in his head. Thankfully he meets a sweet boy (a living one, to be exact) to help his experience. Super fun!
Middle Grade
The Boxcar Children are back at it! Gertrude Chandler Warner’s The Day of the Dead Mystery is a delight! Diversity in the neighborhood, bite-sized mystery, a lot of great info about Mexican culture and the Day of the Dead holiday. I read this nugget on the elliptical and didn’t want this book to end (workout yes, book no). This would be a fantastic read-aloud or audiobook if you have a range of kiddo ages and need books to be G-rated for ears (and mouths that repeat at inopportune times like mine).
Neither of my big kids have a set of The Boxcar Children books and I’m feeling like I they need a set for Christmas!
Ahhh! This book by Anna Meriano was a sugar-coated J-O-Y! Love Sugar Magic – A Dash of Trouble is such a sweet middle grade novel that would be perrrrrfect anytime of year, but especially leading up to Day of the Dead. Leonara (Leo) is in sixth grade and her family lives in Rose Hill, Texas. Her parents run the town’s biggest bakery and it is especially busy leading up to Dia de los Muertos. Leo’s the baby of the family and is the only one not able to help with the big celebration prep. Girl is feeling left OUT.
Leo eye-spies something fishy and decides to investigate. What she discovers is that her sisters, mom and aunt are brujas – witches. Additionally, these ladies can work some of their special magic into the recipes they create at the bakery. Mwah-ha-ha!
But what our family did – what your five-times-great-grandmother did – was find a way to understand her own magic, to make it grow, and to share it with her daughters. It made her stronger, and it makes each of you stronger too.
Anna Meriano, 263
Leo’s bestie Caroline needs a little help trying to sway her love interest from the friend zone into the more-than-friend zone. The two girls put their heads together and draw upon Leo’s very unpracticed, novice, never-been-tried spells to see if they can make a love connection.
See where this can get dicey?! 😉
Insert hijinx and Leo’s sisters (with actual spell skills) and this is a recipe for a sweet middle grade read that isn’t scary and most definitely engrossing. A must-read! Moreover, this is the first book of a three-part series. Win!