TOO MANY TAMALES

By Gary Soto Illustrated by Ed Martinez

Image Credit: www.scholastic.com

1. Bibliography

Soto, Gary, and Ed Martinez. Too Many Tamales. New York: Putnam, 1993. Print. ISBN: 9780698114124

2. Plot Summary

Maria enjoys the Christmas celebration and especially helping her mother make tamales for the family. Maria's mother takes off her ring to knead the masa for the tamales and Maria slips the ring on for a moment. Maria kneads the masa again and again and doesn't think about the ring. Later that evening, Maria remembers the ring believes that the ring is now in the tamales. Instead of telling her mother, Maria gets her cousins to help her eat the tamales in hopes of finding the ring. 

3. Critical Analysis 

In TOO MANY TAMALES we see a family spending time together at Christmas and a child who learns that honesty is important. We also see father in the kitchen helping to make tamales for the big Christmas celebration which is not normal in many households. Gary Soto shows the importance of extended family and that cousins can have fun together. Children will enjoy the part where Maria thinks the ring is in the stomach of Danny. 

The illustrations by Ed Martinez are done in low light which makes the pictures feel warm and inviting like a Christmas evening spent with family and friends. Through the pictures we see pottery that looks similar to other pottery from Mexico. We also see people of Hispanic descent with dark hair and brown skin. Through the illustrations we are able to see the expressions on Maria's face including sadness when she has to tell her mother what happened. 

Cultural Markers present in this fictional story include making tamales for Christmas. Many of the characters in the story had names such as Maria, Teresa, and Rosa. These names are popular in the Hispanic culture. Only a few Spanish words were used in the story which includes masa and nina. Many children will know that this story is Hispanic Literature due to the fact of tamales being cooked for Christmas. Children will find this to be a wonderful read and we have to speculate how her mother had the ring all along. 

4. Review Experts

~ KIKUS (1993): "The whole family is coming for Christmas, so Maria and her parents are busy making tamales--Maria helps Mom knead the masa, and her father puts them in the pot to boil. While they're working, Maria secretly tries on Mom's diamond ring, then forgets about it until she's playing with her cousins. Since it's not on her thumb she's sure it's in a tamale, so the four cousins consume all 24 (with some difficulty) in hopes of finding it. No luck--the ring's on Mom's finger, after all. In this family, there's no scolding: Aunt Rosa says, "It looks like we all have to cook up another batch," and so they do, three generations laughing and working together. Soto's simple text is charmingly direct; he skips explanations, letting characters reveal themselves by what they do. Martinez's realistic, nicely composed paintings are glowing with light and life, while he reinforces the story with particularly expressive faces and gestures. This one should become a staple on the holiday menu."

~HORN BOOK (3/1994): "Maria tries on her mother's diamond ring while she helps her parents make tamales for Christmas dinner. Hours later, convinced that the ring fell off while she was kneading the masa, she and her three cousins eat all twenty-four of the increasingly less delicious tamales. Illustrated with rich oil paintings, the book offers a nonreligious glimpse into the celebration of Christmas in one affluent Latino household."

5. Connections

~ Students could write their own story of a possible mishap that has happened at a family gathering or holiday.

~Students could research about tamales and learn how to make them.