Watch Out for Clever Women!: ¡Cuidado Con Las Mujeres Astutas!
Description
A bilingual collection of Southwestern folktales with some tricky women teaching people simple lessons. Humor shines through the fabric of these fables, with bad guys finding that the joke is, invariably, on them.--Bookpaper
Our favorite storyteller, Joe Hayes, goes in for a bit of affirmative action in this collection of his Hispanic folktales. Every one of them features a woman heroine, every one of them is presented in Spanish and English, and every one of them is great fun in the best Joe Hayes style.-- New Mexico Magazine
Table of Contents
In the Days of King Adobe / En los d as del Rey Adob n (Spanish)
That Will Teach You / Ya aprender's (Spanish)
The Day It Snowed Tortillas / El d a que nev tortillas (Spanish)
Just Say Baaaa / Di nom's baaaa (Spanish)
Watch Out / Cuidado (Spanish)
A Note from Joe Hayes
Hispanic tales in the Southwest are almost all of European origin, coming first from Spain to Mexico hundreds of years ago, and then north as Spanish colonists settled in what we now call Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and California. Readers who are familiar with world folklore will recognize all the tales in this collection. For example, some may know an Ethiopian variant of That Will Teach You from Harold Courlander's Fire On the Mountain. Many will relate The Day It Snowed Tortillas, which has been something of a signature story for me for over a decade, to a well-known Russian folktale. In both of these other versions, however, the resourceful character is a man rather than a woman. That a woman is the clever one in the Hispanic variants reveals something about the attitude toward women and a great deal about the sense of humor. People the world over tell stories of a humble individual tricking an overbearing person of higher status, but the idea is especially cherished in Hispanic story lore. Making the trickster a woman, who would traditionally be thought of as less powerful than a man, adds spice to the trick.
From The Day It Snowed Tortillas / El d que nev tortillas
Here is a story about a woman who was married to a poor woodcutter. The man was good at this work. He could chop down a tree in no ti.
Praise for Watch Out for Clever Women!: ¡Cuidado Con Las Mujeres Astutas!
"The introduction to these, bilingual, Spanish/English folktales states that there is an old saying that a woman thinks more in one minute than most men think in an entire month. This pretty much sums up the philosophy expressed in this humorous collection of trickster tales. The tricksters turn out to be clever wives, mothers, daughters and sweethearts, who manage to outwit the villains to save their rather naive or even dumb males. Most of the stories are from the Hispanic tradition of the Southwest, although one tale deals with a Navajo shepherd and his wise mother. One tale, "The Day it Snowed Tortillas" has already been published in an all-English volume with the same title, by Joe Hayes. The illustrations are realistic black and white drawings." Children's Literature
"A bilingual collection of Southwestern folktales with some tricky women teaching people simple lessons. Humor shines through the fabric of these fables, with bad guys finding that the joke is, invariably, on them." Bookpaper
"Our favorite storyteller, Joe Hayes, goes in for a bit of affirmative action in this collection of his Hispanic folktales. Every one of them features a woman heroine, every one of them is presented in Spanish and English, and every one of them is great fun in the best Joe Hayes style." New Mexico Magazine
"Here in the Southwest, Joe Hayes is a folk here himselfeverybody's favorite teller of tales from our own favorite part of the world.
These lively New Mexico cuentos are written in Joe's voice. You are drawn into a circle around him as you read. I loved the amazingly clever (as well as amazingly tricky) women who manage to save the day in each story." —Byrd Baylor
"These stories are clear, lovely earthyas still and as comforting as a smooth stone in the palm of an outstretched hand. As I read through these tales, I was reminded of the fact that a good story teller can always teach us something new about ourselves. If there is joy in simple things, then this book is filled with much joy." Benjamin Alire Sáenz
"Children will delight in the tricks these clever women concoct." Houston Post
