El piñatero/ The Piñata Maker

Today is my birthday and to celebrate it with my companeros and readers at La Bloga, I thought I would share one of my favorite birthday memories as well as do my usual Thursday review.

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 with tons of brightly colored paper and streaming tassles on each cone. I remember being so excited when it was time to break it. We sang the pinata 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 a shard and I still have mine all these years later.

El piñatero/ The Piñata Maker is a fantastic little photo journal about a piñata maker. There are 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 pinata de picos, my birthday pinata. I was thrilled to find this amazing little book dedicated to an almost lost art. No Spongebob pinatas or tacky Ninja turtles made of cheap paper and plastic in this book. It's a treasure and I share it with you on my 44th birthday in the hopes of reviving the art so that our children can be as enchanted as I was on my seventh birthday.

Hasta pronto.

Gina MarySol Ruiz