Elisa Amado, illustrated by Luis Garay,
Cousins.
Groundwood Books, 2004

Rating: A*

The unnamed narrator at the center of this story is caught between the tensions that exist between two radically different cultures. The child lives with her widowed Latin American father and her North American grandmother, Mimi. At Mimi's house, she has everything she could ever want: many beautiful things, lots of books and plenty of money. The home of her other grandmother, Abuela Adela, is much different. The narrator often visits Abuela Adela for an after school where she witnesses a busy Hispanic-Catholic household full of extended family where material possessions are not of great value. The child likes to visit her Abuela Adela's house and visit with her cousin Mariana, who is about to make her first communion.

The child, who is not Catholic, loves to observe the world in which Mariana lives. She loves the icon of the baby Jesus and is specially fond of the moonstone rosary that is kept beside it. The child is so jealous that Mariana will get to carry the rosary at her first Holy Communion that she steals it. She is overcome with feelings of shame and guilt but is too frightened to confess her sin until Mimi finds the rosary in the pocket of her bathrobe. Realizing that she has been discovered, the child runs to the church and confess to the priest who walks her home, forgiven. The child apologizes to both her grandmother and to her cousin and realizes that she is very lucky to be able to move so freely between two incredibly different worlds.

Cousins is an interesting story that looks at how children who are caught between two worlds cope with the differences. Although the story is slow to start and has elements along the way that do not help to move the plot forward, it is a good starting point to launch a discussion on multiculturalism and the fundamentals of different faiths. The art is a series of warmly toned acrylic paintings, by Luis Garay, that ultimately succeed where the text sometimes falls short.

Thematic Links: Family, Christianity, Interpersonal Relationships.

Carroll Chapman
Vol. 10, number 1
October 2004

*Rating System:
E - Excellent, enduring, everyone should see it!
G - Good, even great at times, generally useful!
A - Avarage, all right, has its applications.
P - Problematic, puzzling, poorly presented.