Too Many Tamales

By; Gary SotoIllustrated by; Ed Martinez

Too Many Tamales is a story about a girl named Maria who is celebrating the Christmas holiday with her family. Maria has always wanted to wear her mother’s wedding ring and sees the perfect opportunity when she finds it sitting by the kitchen sink.   Shortly after she puts the ring on, she and her cousins begin making tamales for a holiday party. They have to knead the masa in order to prepare the tamales. The children finish making the tamales and go upstairs to play. This is when Maria realizes that she has lost her mother’s wedding ring. It was no longer on her finger, so she concludes that she has lost it in the masa of the tamales. All of the children decide to go down and eat all of the tamales that they had prepared for the party, in order to try and find the wedding ring. By the time the children are to the last tamale, they are stuffed and have not found the ring. When Maria decides to go tell her mother that she has lost the wedding ring, she sees the ring on her mother’s finger. The story ends with the whole family coming together to make another batch of tamales for the party.

This would be a great story to share different holiday traditions and foods.  This book was very engaging and fun to read.  The illustrations really added to the story and showed the emotions on the children's faces and brought life to the characters.