Författarbild

Patricia Santos Marcantonio

Författare till Red Ridin' in the Hood: and Other Cuentos

4 verk 60 medlemmar 6 recensioner

Verk av Patricia Santos Marcantonio

Taggad

Allmänna fakta

Kön
female
Nationalitet
USA
Födelseort
Pueblo, Colorado, USA

Medlemmar

Recensioner

When you think of horror comics you think of Tales From The Crypt or Vault Of Horror. If you never read these comics from the past you know the type of stories in them and thinking about them puts a smile on your face. Now there’s a graphic novel that pays homage to those comics and adds a Latino flavor. Sueño Street is written by Patricia Santos Marcantonio with art by Mike Youngman.

In the introduction Patricia Santos Marcantonio talks about her love of comics and how she wanted to make her own using Latino characters. Sueño Street comes complete with its own horror host, a young street artist who draws scenes of nightmares and unseen places. He points out that every action has consequences and gives us six tales of horror.

One of my favorite stories here was the tale of La Llorona the weeping woman. This is a story that is part of Hispanic folklore centering on a ghost of a crying woman who drowned her kids and is now searching for her lost children along the river. In this story we hear about her orgin in 1920 from Mexico. What makes this one so great is that marionettes are used to tell the tale, sort of an art form in an art form. For a short story there is a lot of depth here as we hear about the emotions of La Llorona and learn why she did it. My favorite part was the end as we see the emotions of La Llorona’s mother and how the street artist reacts.

Another good one is about Cucuy the Hispanic boogeyman. It takes place in 1761, a woman named Lita takes on a job caring for a child who believes that no one likes him and others believe may be evil. He says he has a special friend and that friend may be responsible for other children in the town disappearing. Lita discovers that something may be wrong with the boy but is he truly cursed? I love how this story opens up with a man telling Lita she has come to Hell and Lita answering that she has already been there. This is a good bit of foreshadowing as we see that Lita can handle such things as a monster who lives under beds.

Sueño Street is a stunningly visual walk down memory lane. Patricia Santos Marcantonio adds a certain depth to each story that you don’t often see in comics and the art compliments her storytelling nicely. As I was reading it I was reminded of the horror comics I enjoyed as a kid along with all the anthology shows I use to watch like Tales From The Darkside. These stories don’t necessarily have a moral to them they are just meant to entertain and scare us and they do a great job of it. What makes this a must read is that it centers around Hispanic folklore which is something you don’t normally see in comics. Though the main reason you should get it is great art and great storytelling, what more can you ask for?
… (mer)
 
Flaggad
dwatson2 | Nov 22, 2017 |
Kat and Marie Bench are not like other girls, they may be interested in make-up and boys but they are also obsessed with ghosts. They love telling ghost stories, they read all the books about ghosts that they can find, they watch movies about ghosts and TV shows about ghost hunters. They even have a blog called the ghost sisters and hope to become ghost hunters and see one someday.

The ghost girls along with their divorced mom have just moved to Pueblo Colorado and will start school at Apache Middle School. Starting at a new school can be hard and classes at Apache are even harder because the ghost of a young girl haunts the hallways. She opens lockers and slams them shut, makes the lights flicker, leaves mysterious messages around school and can be heard crying and shrieking. Kat and Marie’s dreams of seeing a ghost are about to come true and their career as ghost hunters are just beginning. Hopefully they can find out why the ghost is there and save the school from any further damage.

The Ghost Sisters And The Girl In Hallway B by Patricia Santos Marcantonio may be a Y.A. novel that is meant for kids but it’s a story that adults will like also. Despite me not being the intended audience for this book, I really enjoyed it because a good story is a good story and I like anything that has to do with the supernatural. I also liked the ghost sisters and wanted to see how they dealt with a real ghost. Kids will love this book because they will be able to relate to the problems that these middle school kids are dealing with. I liked that the girls have to deal with going to a new school because of a divorce which is something lots of kids deal with. These girls deal with it well though thanks to a passion for ghosts.

There was a lot to like about this book, in particular I liked when we first meed the ghost sisters and they talk about their love of the supernatural. Though I have to say my favorite part of The Ghost Sisters And The Girl In Hallway B was the message on how bullying affects kids. In the book Kat and Marie have a friend named Trini who has to deal with bullying. I liked that Trini doesn’t want to tell adults about the bullying because she is embarrassed about it. Its pretty normal for a kid to not want to admit to being bullied and I liked seeing how Kat, Marie and the adults in their lives deal with the problem.

The Ghost Sisters And The Girl In Hallway B is everything you would want a YA novel to be, there is a good mystery to it, some scenes with ghosts that kids will really like and some good humor. One of the funniest parts was when one of the sisters says that 10 years was so long ago and the other sister says “In adult time that’s not very long.” Patricia seems to really know how young kids think. I hope this is the beginning of a series so we can have more adventures with The Ghost Sisters.
… (mer)
 
Flaggad
dwatson2 | Sep 12, 2015 |
I did not like this book. I thought the title was clever, but the stories were not so clever. Red Ridin' is the second of eleven stories. This "twist "on the traditional is not as funny or original as Jon Sciescka's work-The True story of the Three Pigs .

"Roja" is sent to visit her abuelita and is warned to avoid Forest St. Of course she doesn't and is approached by the wolf, which in this case is a boy in a low rider named Lobo Chavez. This story (as well as the cuentos) is boring, condescending and plays to stereotypes of Latino culture.

Grades 4-8
… (mer)
 
Flaggad
msgudgeon2 | 3 andra recensioner | Mar 3, 2013 |
Personal Response:
The imaginative retelling of these adventures, Red traveling through the "bad neighborhood on Forest Street," are clever reinterpretations of classic fairy tales. While there is a lot of buildup and clever adaptation to incorporate latino culture, I felt the endings were a bit abrupt and flat. The stories have humorous elements, however, that I'm sure children will enjoy.

Curricular Connections:
This story would be great on a presentation in the classroom or library setting on fractured fairy tales/fairy tales retold. I would not include these in a presentation of "fairy tales around the world" as they are reinterpretations of generic European tales. My favorite aspect of this book is the full page illustrations.… (mer)
 
Flaggad
crochetbunnii | 3 andra recensioner | Jul 16, 2010 |

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Priser

Statistik

Verk
4
Medlemmar
60
Popularitet
#277,520
Betyg
4.1
Recensioner
6
ISBN
7

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