What's your secret?
Today I get to find out the secret which inspired that fun children's book, Mamá Graciela’s
Secret by Mayra Calvani. Hurray! It's a lovely picture book with mouthwatering foods, gorgeous scenery, and cats! You can find my review of Mamá Graciela’s Secret here, and learn more about Mamá Graciela’s Secret at my earlier blogpost. But now, meet the author, and learn her real secret...
My
grandparents also had a small restaurant by the beach called La Bahía (just
like in the book!) and my grandmother’s talent for making pollo frito (fried chicken) was kind of well-known in Ponce, the
town in the southern coast of Puerto Rico where they lived. Initially my tale
was about dogs and pollo frito, very
close to the real story, but after I started the submission process, an agent
told me the children’s market was saturated with dog books and she suggested I
changed it to cats. So that’s what I did. This naturally led to bacalaítos
fritos (codfish fritters) instead of pollo
frito. It worked better because bacalaítos fritos are a traditional Puerto
Rican snack, which added to the ethnic quality of the book.
The Inspiration behind ‘Mamá Graciela’s Secret’By Mayra Calvani
All my
books have a special place in my heart, but my latest children’s picture book, Mamá
Graciela’s Secret, has an even more special place. This is because it was
inspired by my paternal grandmother, also named Graciela.
Mamá Graciela
was a very sweet, generous, selfless person. And a passionate dog lover. She
rescued many dogs not from shelters but right from the streets and at one point
had like 30 dogs living under her roof. She just couldn’t stand the idea of an
animal suffering the harsh life of the streets. When she saw a stray dog, she
had to help. Her husband wasn’t as much a dog lover as she was but he never got
in the way of her helping the dogs, which was nice.
My
grandparents also had a small restaurant by the beach called La Bahía (just
like in the book!) and my grandmother’s talent for making pollo frito (fried chicken) was kind of well-known in Ponce, the
town in the southern coast of Puerto Rico where they lived. Initially my tale
was about dogs and pollo frito, very
close to the real story, but after I started the submission process, an agent
told me the children’s market was saturated with dog books and she suggested I
changed it to cats. So that’s what I did. This naturally led to bacalaítos
fritos (codfish fritters) instead of pollo
frito. It worked better because bacalaítos fritos are a traditional Puerto
Rican snack, which added to the ethnic quality of the book.
Mamá Graciela
also loved cats and, as I understand it, she fed them outside her home, but it
was difficult and potentially dangerous to keep them indoors because of the
dogs… So I knew I had to combine both critters at the end of the story. My
grandmother died many years ago, but I could never forget her and her love for
animals, so the idea simmered in my mind for over a decade before I was ready
to put it down to paper. I’m very glad I did.
Oh wow! And now I know what bacalaítos fritos are! What a wonderful story, and I'm so glad you turned it into such a wonderful book. I guess I'm still wondering how there can be too many dog books, but I really love that you included cats and dogs on your final page. You cooked up something wonderful Mayra! Thank you for making my blog taste so nice.
Mamá Graciela’s Secret
Publication date: October
10, 2017
Written by Mayra Calvani
Illustrated by Sheila
Fein
MacLaren-Cochrane Publishing
www.maclaren-cochranepublishing.com
36 pages, 3-7 year olds
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