Page 141 – Pat Mora

This Month’s Día Dynamo!

Elva Garza

This month Pat honors librarian Elva Garza for her faithful support of Día since its beginnings. Elva has advocated for Día on local, state and national levels, has planned celebrations, and has participated in conference programs that educate others and extend Día’s reach.

1. Tell us about your path to librarianship and your work in libraries.

“I had never thought about being a librarian until I got a job my sophomore year of college as a work-study student in the reference department at Southwest Texas State University. I was amazed at how the librarians could find the answer to any questions that came across the reference desk and I wanted to be able to do that. I went off to library school at the University of North Texas with every intention of being an academic librarian but got my first job working for San Antonio Public as a reference librarian. After 5 years, I came to work for the Austin Public Library as a Branch Manager and I am currently working as a Regional Branch Manager overseeing five branches.”

“In Austin, I have always worked in communities where visiting a library for enjoyment is not necessarily something families do, so it has been my job and the staff I work with to introduce families to what libraries have to offer them. Día de los Niños/Día de los Libros celebration has been one of the programs we have used to do this.”

2. What to you is the biggest reward of being involved with Día?
“I think my biggest reward from being involved with Día has been the friendships and partnerships that I have seen develop over the years. These partnerships have brought new learning opportunities for the families we serve all year round. One of these programs has been the Family Learning Nights held in schools throughout Austin. Several of our Día partners get together to provide literacy based activities for families learning math, reading, or science skills. Families receive free books along with library cards.”

3. What ideas do you have for Día 2011 and what are your hopes for the 15th Anniversary celebration?
“From [a small event in a church] we have grown to a citywide event where we had as many as 6,000 attend one year. We are just beginning the planning for this year’s Día celebration. We are talking about a month long celebration with events going on in our schools and libraries.”

4. What are you reading now?
“I am currently reading The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan. I have a ten-year-old buddy and this was his pick. He is a reluctant reader so when ever he asks me to read something with him I jump up and read.”

5. What is your favorite example of Bookjoy either as a child or as adult?
“I was never a big reader as a kid; it was not until in college when I first discovered books written by Latino authors that I felt an excitement in reading. When I first read books by Tomás Rivera, Rudolfo Anaya, and Gabriel García Márquez, I was recognizing my family’s stories. These were the stories I heard from my grandfather and father — the stories of the curandera, of living in a migrant camp and working in the fields, of brothers going off to war.”

Children as Creators

What are you reading these days? I’ve been savoring some mighty special books made for me by the third graders at Hoffer Elementary School in Banning, California. Last March, I had the honor and pleasure of speaking at the Charlotte S. Huck Literature Festival in Redlands. It felt grand to leave cold Santa Fe and thaw out in sunny California. The organizing committee was warm and welcoming, my fellow speakers interesting and informative, and my sweet “angel” for the weekend, student Sarah Fiske-Phillips cheerfully escorted me to each event.

A highlight of my visit was meeting with those third graders though. Not only were they attentive and enthusiastic, they brought me gifts! In honor of my first children’s book, A Birthday Basket for Tía, they presented me with a large book they’d made titled, “An Author Basket for Pat Mora.” How I enjoy turning the pages and seeing the writing, art work and photos the students created after reading some of my books.

These talented students also made character sketch posters, a book of “thanks” inspired by Gracias~Thanks that includes statements and drawings, and a book about why libraries are important inspired by Tomás and the Library Lady. The children also presented me with a basket that day that included chocolates because I’d written Yum! ¡MmMm! ¡Qué Rico!, a lovely tea towel on which a mom had cross-stitched lovely poinsettias because I’d written The Gift of the Poinsettia: El regalo de la flor de nochebuena, and, one of my weaknesses pan dulce, Mexican sweet bread, made by a mom that morning because I’d written, The Bakery Lady/La señora de la panadería.

The children and teachers had decorated the room with their work including a bulletin board of “scary masks” inspired by reading Abuelos. The children said I could use the masks on “any kids you might know.” You can imagine how overwhelmed I felt at all the hard work that had been done by the students and their two wonderful teachers. I was also so impressed at the critical thinking the teachers had prompted in their students.

After their presentation, I asked the children how they thought I felt.

“Amazed?” they asked.

“Stunned?”

I laughed and said, “Teary,” which is the way I’ve felt as I typed this memory. I also received illustrated thank-you notes after our time together. As I say in my new book, Zing! Seven Creativity Practices for Educators and Students, teachers are treasures. My deep gracias~thanks to Ms.Gretchen Pelle and Ms. Kelly Mineo for reminding me how outstanding teachers enrich the lives of their students and for showering me with gifts and happy memories.

A New Día Dynamo

When my web team and I honored what we first called Día Champions in March 2009, we wanted to recognize a woman who embraced spreading the Día concept throughout her state. Flo Trujillo is still cheerfully busy with that work in New Mexico. Today we honor Día’s madrina, godmother in Spanish, a person traditionally chosen because of her commitment to the well-being of a child. In 1996, minutes after I was first zapped by the Día idea, the Tucson Reforma Chapter quickly volunteered to help. Soon after, my friend and literacy advocacy colleague, the respected Oralia Garza de Córtes, committed to connecting the Día concept to Reforma nationally. Reforma, of course, became the first organization to partner with me in growing Día. Gracias, gracias, Oralia, for your commitment to Día nationally and internationally.

I. Tell us about your path to librarianship and work in youth services.
“…[I]t was not until I became a mom that I fell in love with the fairy tales and the picture books that I read to my children when they were very young. … [A]t the newly reconstructed Carnegie Branch in Houston, [I met] Louise Yarain Zwick [who] had just returned to the states after spending some time in El Salvador. She was the one librarian who influenced me, mentored me and passed on her love of children’s literature and children’s librarianship. She truly understood how important it was for children to have a librarian who looked liked them and who understood their culture and spoke their language. She also imparted her vast knowledge of the classics of Spanish children’s literature. …It was Louise who encouraged me go to library school … My first job as a professional was as a children’s librarian at the Terrazas Branch of the Austin Public Library, actively promoting Spanish and bilingual storytimes, programs and services for the neighborhood children and their families.”

2. How long have you been a member of REFORMA, and why did you become a member?
“I joined REFORMA over twenty years ago, at the same time that I joined the ALA, ALSC, and EMIERT. I was a graduate student attending my first library conference. Louise had organized a program on Spanish Children’s Literature through EMIERT and invited me to participate. It was there that I met Sandra Ríos Balderrama … We became fast friends and true collaborators, working on REFORMA’s behalf to establish the children’s section of REFORMA.”

3. What ideas do you have for Día 2011 and what are your hopes for the 15th Anniversary celebration?
“2010 has been a banner year for promoting Día at the international level. … We hope to continue building Día at both the international and national levels. … As an organization we [REFORMA] will be enthusiastically promoting Día and the Pura Belpre Awards’ fifteenth anniversaries by encouraging Quinceañera celebrations throughout the community. At ALA annual in 2011, REFORMA and ALSC will debut Día and the Belpre’s Quince (fifteenth) birthday celebrations in New Orleans.”

4. What are you reading now?
“I just finished reading Mr. Mendoza’s Paintbrush, a graphic novel by Alberto Urrea (Cinco Puntos, 2011). The illustrations are stunning, and the story is brilliant. It has stayed with me still. I’m also reading Urrea’s Into the Beautiful North. I am thoroughly enjoying Grace Lin’s Where the Mountain Meets the Moon (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2009), a wonderful magical fairytale in novel form.”

5. What is your favorite example of Bookjoy either as a child or an adult?
“Years, back, I found my eight year old son quietly searching through the hall closet. I asked if I could help, but he was deep in thought. As I observed him, I realized that he was looking for a magic path much like the children he was reading about in the C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia series The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.(1950).That was a ‘bookjoy’ moment I will long cherish.”

This is an edited version of the full interview which you’ll find on the Día Dynamos page of Pat’s website, https://www.patmora.com/dia-dynamos/

Meet My Friend Father Murray Bodo

What a pleasure it is to introduce you to one of my dearest amigos, Franciscan priest and author of poetry, nonfiction and books on spirituality, a retreat leader here and in Assisi, the gifted story teller, Murray Bodo.

Years ago, I knew the poet Denise Levertov. I wrote her in 1989 to say that I was moving from El Paso for the first time and going to Cincinnati where my husband had begun to teach at the University. Denise suggested that I write to her good friend Father Murray who lived in Cinci. We met, took a poetry workshop on campus together and started a small poetry group. (I wrote about the group’s process in ZING.) There we were in the Midwest: Murray of Italian heritage who was born in Gallup, New Mexico, taught by nuns and as a child played at being a priest; and Pat of Mexican heritage, born in El Paso, Texas, also taught by nuns who as a child played at being a nun.

Murray and I shared and share a love of the Southwest, its landscape, peoples and deep spiritual traditions. We share our love of books, writing, and especially of poetry. We also love to laugh, and Murray can always make me laugh. How blessed I feel that this fall, Murray will have been my loyal and caring friend for 21 years. I encourage you to visit his new web site.

Creativity in the News

“Creativity in America: The Science of Innovation and How to Reignite Our Imaginations.” Cover story NEWSWEEK, July 19, 2010. Authors Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman in their article “The Creativity Crisis: For the First Time, Research Shows That American Creativity Is Declining. What Went Wrong — and How We Can Fix It” illustrate the national and international interest in creativity, its importance, and discuss the fostering of innovation in our educational system.

Are you creative? Magazines, newspapers and conferences are proclaiming the relevance of innovation as we confront the challenges of a complex, inter-dependent world and as we strive to develop our unique talents and those of our diverse young people. In my book ZING: SEVEN CREATIVITY PRACTICES FOR EDUCATORS AND STUDENTS recently published by Corwin, I propose seven habits that assist us to develop our potential to enrich our communities and our own lives. Using a personal letter format, I share my strategies as a writer, speaker and advocate. Sample the introduction and begin the journey of fostering your creative self.