Three Stalks of Corn (11/9)

Title: Three Stalks of Corn
Author: Leo Politi
Type: Picture book
Ages: 6-10 years old- Advanced readers
Rating: 3

Summary: A little girl, Angela learns the importance of her Mexican background. Her grandmother teachers her all about the three types of corn that are incorporated into almost all Mexican meals.

Overall, I was not impressed with this book. It is VERY wordy. I found myself stopping and rereading sentences in order to understand. Also it states emotions like "she was happy" instead of describing emotions. Everything was based off word description, there was little support from illustrations.

What I did find interesting about this book was the legend that her grandmother told about the three stalks of corn. She describes a flood and how two children ran up to a mountain with hard corn, soft corn and yellow cord in order to survive the flood.  They than planted those corn seeds and those are the type of corn stalks that grew all over the land. This legend is why we only have hard, soft and yellow corn. I found this interesting because it was something I could relate to. I know we only have those three types of corn so it was fun to associate it with a legend. Overall, I was not impressed with this book because of the blandness and lack of description.