Mice and Beans

Ryan, Pam Munoz. 2001. Mice and Beans. Ill. by Joe Cepeda. New York: Scholastic. ISBN 0-439-18303-0.

Rosa Maria is a sprightly Hispanic grandmother with red glasses and a beehive hairdo. She's busy getting her little house ready for her granddaughter's birthday party. The preparations take all week, and at every step something goes missing - a cloth napkin, Rosa Maria's favorite spoon, feathers from the pinata, a birthday candle, and lots of moustraps. Rosa Maria has set the traps because, as her mother always said, "Where there's room in the heart, there's room in the house, except for a mouse."

Where could everything be disappearing to? And who could have put the candy in the pinata when Rosa Maria forgot? The illustrations tell the story by showing us the mouse family that Rosa Maria hasn't noticed - including a grandmother mouse in a pink apron and red glasses. Finally, when the party is over, Rosa Maria discovers the mouse hole. And she remembers that her mother's dicho wasn't "except for a mouse" after all.

Both the story and the illustrations are upbeat and full of zest. Rosa Maria looks on the bright side no matter what happens. (When one of the seven birthday candles goes missing, she makes a number seven out of the six candles that are left.)
Cepeda's illustrations are colorful and often funny (the turkey pinata is always watching the action, and so is the person in a picture on the wall). And, of course, the illustrations add the subplot of the mouse family making their own party preparations. The illustration on the last page of the story seems like a punch line as we see inside the mouse hole and discover what's happened to Rosa Maria's missing items.

It's not clear exactly where the story takes place; Rosa Maria lives in a generic suburban house with a yard, although she shops at a bakery with adobe walls and a tile roof. The interlingual Spanish sounds natural, even when it is sometimes repeated in English; since Rosa Maria is talking to herself throughout the story, it sounds like she's just repeating herself for emphasis.

One of the best things about this book as multicultural literature is that it has a plot! Although Rosa Maria's granddaughter has a birthday party with a pinata, Ryan doesn't bring out the pinata symbol to illustrate the differences between Catalina's birthday and some ideal "regular American" birthday party. Instead, all the cultural markers in the story arise naturally as part of the plot and are treated as regular parts of life.

I would recommend this book to anyone looking to expand their collection of multicultural books. Although it could easily be displayed with other books by Hispanic authors, I would also display it with other books that have subplots going on in the pictures, like Detective Donut and the Wild Goose Chase.

Booklist says, "The story is charming, but what makes it special is the quiet authenticity of the Hispanic characterizations."

Booklist. Qtd. in Amazon.com. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/product-description/0439701368/sr=1-1/qid=1183139033/ref=dp_proddesc_0/104-1796065-2716726?ie=UTF8&n=283155&s=books&qid=1183139033&sr=1-1.