The Golden Flower: A Taino Myth from Puerto Rico Book

The Golden Flower is a beautiful creation story that originates from a Taino myth. In summary, it is a creation story of how water and the sea come to earth, as well as how the Taino people's island of Boriquen (Puerto Rico) was created. It begins with a child finding seeds that he plants at the top of the mountain where all the people live. From the seeds, a large forest grows, and in this forest, a flower grew. This flower transformed into a ball shaped pumpkin. As two men fight to take position of it, it falls and breaks open, spilling out the key features that will create the island! I think this book is creative in telling two types of creation stories in one. This book would be great for primary grades. Students would be given an opportunity to learn about a culture group that may be different from their own. The illustrations are outstanding. The colors are bright, yet mellow, until the revealing of what is in the pumpkin. From here, the colors are more vibrant. There is a slight divergent from the text to illustrations, but it certainly does not take away the effective depicts of the core of the story. There are unfamiliar words in this book, so the only weakness I see is not providing the reader with tools to assist in pronouncing theses words. The story does have a great start as it asks the reader to imagine sitting in a magic circle listening to this story. This provides a great transition to bring in young readers to whole class reading circles.