A popular Latin American holiday, el Día de los Muertos, is on Tuesday-Wednesday, Nov. 1-2, and we’ve got the perfect way to celebrate: Pat Mora’s bilingual picture book, The Remembering Day / El día de los muertos!
With tender illustrations by Robert Casilla that depict Bella and Mamá Alma’s loving relationship, this book will encourage children to honor loved ones, whether by writing stories and poems or creating their own remembering place.
These activities will engage and inspire your kids!
- Invite students to share stories about their relationship with a remembered loved one. Students can also share a photo or their own drawing.
- Invite students to write a poem about a deceased family member or friend.
- Invite students to bring photos or special objects of remembered loves ones and create a classroom, library or school display.
- Plan a remembering day event at your school or library. You can include flowers, songs, favorite foods of loved ones, and even funny stories. Create a celebration of special people we want to honor, such as Cesar Chávez and Pura Belpré.
Critics rave about The Remembering Day / El día de los muertos:
“In a tender story, Mora imagines the origins of el Día de los Muertos in a village in ‘the land now called Mexico’…on the night Mama Alma dies, Bella sees ‘una pequeña luz,’ ‘a tiny light,’ dart out into the night and is comforted; the next year, she and her family have their first ‘remembering day.'”—Publishers Weekly
“Mora…offers this imagined story of how a ‘remembering day’ to honor loved ones now dead might have started in the distant past…as Mamá Alma ages, she wants Bella to know that though human bodies do not live forever, if Bella plans a day when family and friends come together to remember the people they loved, the dead will remain alive in their memories.”—Kirkus Reviews