The book was recommended to me by Anandita as she felt that it was a very nice book. The cover page of this book was what tempted me to finally start reading it.
The theme of this book is “Gender”.
I went online to find out more about the author, illustrator and the book itself. I learnt that the book has received the Parents Choice Award in the year 2004 and has also been commended for the Americas Award for Children’s and Young Adult Literature.
The book is about a girl whose name is Elena. She wants to do what her father does but she is not allowed to do it because she is small and girls don’t do that kind of work. So Elena goes away to a place called Monterrey which is famous for this craft.
She fulfils her dreams and returns home to show her father what she could achieve. My favourite illustration from this book shows Elena flying back home with a pipe blower in her hand on a bird that she had created.The book is fiction, but most of the places mentioned are real.
My connection to the story is that like Elena, in today’s society there are some things that we want to do, that are considered not suitable to be done by girls. Only boys and men can do it. People ask me where I work and when I tell them about Bookworm, they react in a way that indicates it is not what I should be doing.
Everyone should read it as it has beautiful illustrations. The story itself makes you think that you could be Elena.
Every Monday, the Library in Schools team meet to discuss the events of the past week and to plan for that week. As part of that, two or three team members do a Book Talk based on a book that they have read. This piece is a written version of the Book Talk.