Books by Carmen Lomas Garza
Family Pictures/Cuadros de Familia (1990) In My Family/En Mi Familia (1996) Magic Windows/Ventanas Magicas (1999) Making Magic Windows: Creating Papel Picado/Cut-paper Art (1999) A Piece of My Heart/Pedacito de mi Corazon: The Art of Carmen Lomas Garza (1991) with Amalia Mesa-Bains |
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The books by Carmen Lomas Garza are mostly visual memoirs, including Family Pictures, In My Family, and Magic Windows. That means she is telling stories from her life, family, and culture mostly through her artwork and then she has also added writing to describe the stories to her readers. In the video on the first page, she says that she writes exactly what she would say to people about her artwork.
An important thing to notice about Carmen Lomas Garza's books is that they are all bilingual, which means they are written in two languages, English and Spanish. She chose to write this way because she also speaks this way. She also chose to write in both languages because she was thinking about who would read her books. She hopes that children who are bilingual and are from a similar culture will read her books and feel connected to the stories she tells. Writing in multiple languages and telling stories from the Mexican-American culture is also important for readers not from her culture because it teaches them about those languages and culture and helps them better understand all the differences in the world.
Carmen Lomas Garza also wrote nonfiction books about her art. Making Magic Windows is a procedural book (or how-to book) about how to create papel picado, which is the name for traditional Mexican cut-paper art. She has directions for easy and difficult art projects so both kids and adults can use the book and create papel picado. A Piece of My Heart is written about Carmen Lomas Garza's life as an artist. It uses a lot of her painted artwork and some writing by Carmen Lomas Garza about her own life and also writing by another author, Amalia Mesa-Bains, who researched Carmen Lomas Garza's life and artwork.
An important thing to notice about Carmen Lomas Garza's books is that they are all bilingual, which means they are written in two languages, English and Spanish. She chose to write this way because she also speaks this way. She also chose to write in both languages because she was thinking about who would read her books. She hopes that children who are bilingual and are from a similar culture will read her books and feel connected to the stories she tells. Writing in multiple languages and telling stories from the Mexican-American culture is also important for readers not from her culture because it teaches them about those languages and culture and helps them better understand all the differences in the world.
Carmen Lomas Garza also wrote nonfiction books about her art. Making Magic Windows is a procedural book (or how-to book) about how to create papel picado, which is the name for traditional Mexican cut-paper art. She has directions for easy and difficult art projects so both kids and adults can use the book and create papel picado. A Piece of My Heart is written about Carmen Lomas Garza's life as an artist. It uses a lot of her painted artwork and some writing by Carmen Lomas Garza about her own life and also writing by another author, Amalia Mesa-Bains, who researched Carmen Lomas Garza's life and artwork.