Too Many Tamales
Title: Too Many Tamales
Author: Gary Soto
Illustrator: Ed Martinez
Genre: Multicultural
Awards: None
Age Group: K-3rd
Too Many Tamales tells the story of a little girl, Maria, who wanted to be grown-up like her mom. She dresses like her mom, but she's missing the one thing she has been dying to try on: her mom's sparkly wedding ring! As they are making tamales, Maria decides to secretly slip on the ring. She forgets that she is still wearing it as she goes back to kneading the masa. She doesn't realize that the ring is missing until much later when she is playing with her cousins. Right then and there, she decides that the ring must be in the tamales! She and her cousins eat all 24 tamales, determined to find the missing ring. Sadly, no luck! Still no ring. Maria finally draws up the courage to tell her mom when she sees the ring back on her finger. All is forgiven, and Maria helps her family members make a new batch of tamales. Finally, she is able to laugh at herself and enjoy a Christmas night with her family.
I would use this book in my classroom for sure! It is such a cute story that I think many of us can relate to, and the multicultural twist adds another neat element to it. It is short and sweet, and has a good message. It is always best to tell our parents when we make a mistake, because they love us and are willing to help and forgive us.
A super cute activity to go along with this book would be to emulate the same concept of looking for the diamond ring, just with sight words instead of actual tamales. The teacher would prepare the sight word cards and would put each one in a pocket chart. In pairs, one student hides the ring behind one of the cards. Every time one student gets a word right, they can remove the card to see if the ring is there.
Additionally, students could write about what they would do if they were in Maria's situation.
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