Childrens Book Review of The Night of Las Posadas Written and Illustrated by Tomie dePaola

The Night of Las Posadas begins during Advent rehearsals by mountain villagers for the procession of the inns. Sister Angie directs practice sessions, whose vocalizations include:

• Boos, hisses, snarls;
• Dialogue;
• Songs.

She expects:

• Her niece and nephew-in-law to portray Jesus’s parents;
• Two villagers to blacken beards and eyebrows and redden faces, dominate balcony-running, and make red satin capes and caps.

She finds time to:

• Make Lupe’s and Roberto’s respectively blue-and-white and brown costumes;
• Show Lupe and Roberto the carving of the Holy Couple made by Santero (religious icon-maker) Miguel Ovideo -- to celebrate her fifty years of sisterhood the previous year -- and placed by Father Vasquez near the altar rail.

But then she gets the flu.

Lupe’s and Roberto’s old pick-up acts up and dies after skidding in deep snow. Guitarists, horn-players, innkeepers, and singers await in Santa Fe’s historic Plaza lit with:

• Farolitos (paper-bag lanterns);
• Luminarias (bonfires).

A young lady on a donkey and a young man claim to be:

• Lupe’s and Roberto’s replacements;
• Sister Angie’s friends.

They get rejected by five devilish innkeepers. They mysteriously leave after the Palace of Governors’ courtyard gates open. Father Vasquez lets Lupe and Roberto -- who mysteriously and suddenly arrive -- sit near the manger. Back home, Sister Angie simultaneously lights a candle:

• After checking the Blessed Sacrament’s light;
• Before praying.  

She observes:

• Footprints from outside to the altar rail;
• Snow covering the carving’s figures.

New Mexico abounds with local color. The forty-seventh state’s multi-cultural, multi-lingual society becomes fascinatingly festive during the year’s-end holidays. The Night of Las Posadas begins and ends with page-long notes on New World celebrations of Old World customs. It communicates Advent anticipation and Christmas joy to:

• Ages 4 – 8 and upward;
• Preschoolers through third-graders and onward.

It draws upon the impressive work ethic of:

• Tomie dePaola, as artist and author;
• G.P. Putnam’s Sons, as publishers;
• Donna Mark and Marikka Tamura, as designers;
• South China Printing Co. Ltd., as printers.

The artwork -- effectuated in acrylic on handmade watercolor paper -- echoes the text’s message -- set in Stempl Schneidler -- regarding:

• Hispanic legacies;
• Holiday contexts;
• Miraculous events.

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

dePaola, Tomie. 1999. The Night of Las Posadas. New York, NY: G.P. Putnam's Sons.

Farfaglia, Fr. James. 2 December 2014. “Las Posadas -- a Catholic Hispanic Tradition.” Catholic Online: Catholic Life > Advent > Story. Retrieved December 2014.

• Available at: http://www.catholic.org/clife/advent/story.php?id=48757