Too Many Tamales: A Multicultural Tale




 

    Too Many Tamales by Gary Soto is a humorous story about a little Hispanic girl who thinks that she has lost her mother's
wedding ring while making tamales. After realizing that she has lost the ring, the little girl named Maria, enlisted her cousins in helping her eat all the tamales, 24 to be exact, to find the ring. After eating all of the tamales, Maria and her cousins did not find the ring and while telling her mother that the ring was lost, Maria saw the ring on her mother's hand.
    Too Many Tamales is a multicultural tale that helps teach children a few life lessons that greatly benefit them;1) not to play with/take anything that does not belong to them without the owner knowing, and 2)telling the truth and being honest can keep you from doing something unnecessary. This book is great for elementary age children as young as Kindergarten and as old as Second Grade.
    This book is a great realistic fiction because it can very easily be something that happens in real life. I remember as a young child playing with my mother's jewelry, though I never lost any of the jewelry I would say my feelings would be the same as Maria's, scared and upset. Soto also uses some very simple language in this book which makes it ideal for First and Second graders. The illustrator, Ed Martinez, it a great job of making the emotions felt by each character shine through by making the facial expressions realistic and comparable to those one might actually make when feeling the emotions seen in this book.

Discussion Questions:

  • CONNECTIONS: How would you feel if you were Maria? How are your feelings similar or different?
  • What are some solutions you would have for the problem Maria faces in the story?
  • What lessons can can be learned from this story? Support with text evidence.
Motivational Activities:

  • Kindergarten: Discuss other endings to the story, and allow the children to draw a picture of their own ending to the story. (i.e. If Danny had actually  swallowed the ring.)
  • First Grade: Have the students write and alternate ending to the story and draw an accompanying picture.
  • Second Grade: The students can create a timeline or comic strip that calls for the students to sequence the timeline or comic scenes in the same order as the story. 
 Other selections students might enjoy:  

  •  My Abuelita by Tony Johnston
  • Tortilla Sun by Jennifer Cervantes
  • Harvesting Hope: The Story of Cesar Chavez by Kathleen Krull
  • The Skirt by Gary Soto



 
Soto, G. (2011). Too Many Tamales. Paw Prints.



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