The Tequila Worm - Module 5

The Tequila Worm

By Viola Canales

2006 PURA BELPRÈ AWARD

Published by Wendy Lamb Books (2005)

ISBN 9780385746748

Grades: 5-8

Tale

The book tells the story of Sofia, a smart and brave 14 years-old Hispanic girl who lives with her mother, father, and sister Lucy in a poor Mexican barrio (neighborhood) in the small Texas town of McAllen. Her cousin, best friend, and then comadre, Berta is an important part of the story and in Sofia’s life. Becoming a comadre is a concept revealed as the story advances. Sofia realizes how they have grown up to be quite different, yet have remained so close, when she is invited to be Berta’s quinceañera maid of honor. Berta wants a big and fancy quinceañera, has a boyfriend she intends to marry soon, loves to watch romantic movies, and knows how to sew (attributes of Berta’s and Sofia’s mothers). On the other hand, Sofia is just like her father and wants to learn things, discover the world, fight for herself, and experience more than the family traditions. Still, she is a loving sister and daughter that respects her family’s values and accepts their decisions. Sofia fights wisely against prejudice when it appears during the early school years when her classmates called her taco head, and later on when she receives a scholarship to attend St. Luke’s, a prestigious school in Austin. 

Thought

I enjoyed reading this book and agree that many of the characteristics portrayed in this book are a realistic portrayal of numerous Latin families I have met in Mexico, Brazil, Venezuela, and here in Texas. Family members care for each other and the rich traditions are respected, observed and transmitted from generation to generation. The concept of close family goes far beyond parents and children: aunts, uncles, godparents, cousins, grandparents…all are part of a close Latin family and provide many fertile role models. Decisions, both important and routine, are usually made after considering other family member opinions.

About the author

From http://www.randomhouse.com/kids/pdf/AuthorBioViolaCanales.pdf

As a kid growing up in McAllen, Texas, Viola Canales shared a bedroom with her grandmother . . . and a big statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe that her grandmother treated as if it were alive! Because her parents considered it disrespectful to speak English in front of her grandmother, Viola started school not speaking or reading English. So for her, it was the outside world that seemed alien, and not the world of her barrio where curanderas (folk healers) cured cases of evil eye with chicken eggs, her mother made dolls out of old stockings, and the heat of the canicula (the dog days of summer) made everyone a little bit crazy (crazier). Her barrio felt so wonderfully rich with the magic and mystery of traditions, family, friends, and foods that she didn’t realize she was

poor until she won a scholarship at the age of 15 to attend St. Stephen’s Episcopal School, an elite boarding school over 300 miles away in Austin. Although the school introduced her to another mundo and fostered her lifelong love of literature, she was so homesick that she started writing stories—to conjure up her family and the barrio that she missed so much. Over the next years, Viola graduated from Harvard College and

Harvard Law School, served as a captain in the U.S. Army, was a community organizer for the United Farm Workers, practiced law, held a presidential-level appointment in the Clinton Administration, worked with chief executive officers, but she never stopped writing stories to conjure up the magical world of her barrio. These stories and memories inspired her first book, a collection of short stories entitled Orange Candy Slices and Other Secret Tales, and her novel, The Tequila Worm, which was awarded the 2006 Pura

Belpré Medal for Narrative. She now lives in Stanford, California, with her family, and owns a house in McAllen, Texas, too, where her mother and many of her relatives still live, and where she often comes to visit.

Review

From Kirkus Reviews 2005 July #2

"Sofia, growing up in an urban Latino neighborhood in McAllen, Texas, has a chance to attend an expensive boarding school in Austin on scholarship. Like her father, Sofia lives the life of the mind, rich with story and possibility. How can she convince her mother to let her take this opportunity? By learning to dance and showing her that she can leave home and still learn to become a good comadre. Canales, the author of the story collection Orange Candy Slices and Other Secret Tales (2001), is a graduate of Harvard Law School, suggesting that Sofia's story at least closely parallels her own. She is an accomplished storyteller, though not yet, perhaps, a successful novelist. The episodic narrative has disconcerting leaps in time at the beginning, and a sense of completion, or a moral displayed, at several points throughout all lacking the tension to carry the reader forward. This said, the characters and setting are so real to life that readers who connect with Sofia at the start will find many riches here, from a perspective that is still hard to find in youth literature. (Fiction. 10-14) Copyright Kirkus 2005 Kirkus/BPI Communications. All rights reserved."

Activity

In groups, students will discuss different cultures and their own culture and traditions. If students feel comfortable sharing experiences, they may expose any episode in which they felt discriminated. Finally and individually they will express how they would react if they were in Sofia’s place when she was called taco head.