I love piñatas! They hold a special place in my heart and memories. When I was seven years old, my grandfather brought back from Mexico a beautiful, traditional piñata called piñata de picos. It was gorgeous and I still have mine all these years later.
I remember being so excited when it was time to break it, tons of brightly colored paper and streaming tassles on each cone. We sang the piñata song, dale dale dale... The best part of all was when one of my cousins broke it and we found it was made of clay. Each of us children kept is a fantastic little photo journal about a piñata maker.
El Piñatero/ The Piñata Maker contains full color photos of the process of making piñatas. It is the story of Tio Rico, a traditional piñata maker. His pinatas are exquisite, especially the Swan, which is elegant and feels almost alive.
There are pages dedicated to my favorite, the piñata de picos, my birthday piñata. I was thrilled to find this amazing little book dedicated to an almost lost art. No Spongebob piñatas or tacky Ninja or tacky Ninja turtles made of cheap paper and plastic in this book.
George Ancona's photography and his love of the pinata really shines through this beautiful book. It's a treasure and I share it with you on in the hopes of reviving the art so that our children can be as enchanted as I was on my seventh birthday.
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