Book Review: Chato's Kitchen and Other Stories From the Hispanic Tradition by Gary Soto

Chato’s Kitchen and Other Stories From the Hispanic Tradition
by Gary Soto [Playaway j Soto]

Have you seen the little orange boxes in the children’s reading room? These are called Playaways, a nifty system for listening to audiobooks that doesn’t require special equipment other than headphones and a battery. Being old enough to have enjoyed playing little records that came with Read Aloud books, I wanted to try out this technology and see how it compared. I found it to be super simple to use; I put in the battery and plugged in my headphones and pushed play and it was easy as that. The bookpack I chose, Chato’s Kitchen and Other Stories From the Hispanic Tradition includes several stories, (with books as well as the player), two about a cat named Chato and another about Mexican pottery. In the jewel of the set, Chato’s Kitchen, Cheech Marin voices the characters wonderfully, and the background music is a fun match for the voices and illustrations. I don’t think I would have enjoyed the story so much without the added flavor combination of Marin’s voicing and the snippets of Chicano rock music.

The story itself was fun: Low-riding Chato is a cat from East LA. And like many cats, he thinks a dinner “with” the local family of rodents could be the feast of his dreams. He invites his friend, Novio Boy, to help him in the kitchen where they are whipping up some Chicano dishes that will make your mouth water: Tamales, frijoles, churros, and more . . . it’s a feast for sure. The music will make you want to dance along with Chato and Novio Boy as they cook.

Recognized as one of the best 100 books in the last 100 years by New York Public Library in 2014, Chato’s Kitchen is a fun take on the “mice pull one over on the cat who invited them to dinner genre.” And the play-away book version is extra special.

The other stories included in the set were Chato and the Party Animals (Chato’s friend, Novio Boy, has never had a birthday party. So Chato decides to throw him one – a “pachanga” – and everyone is invited.) and The Pot that Juan Built: (Juan Quezada, one of Mexico’s most famous potters, used his creative gifts to transform his impoverished village into a thriving artists’ community. The book includes a rhyming story and background on Juan Quezada).

This bookpack of three books and a player was thoroughly enjoyable and Cheech Marin did a wonderful job of voicing all the different characters, and, as I mentioned before, the background music made me want to get up dance. If you haven’t tried a Playaway book, and you (or your kids) like stories about cats, I’d highly recommend giving it a go!

[If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try Chato or Chato’s Day of the Dead, also by Gary Soto, or my favorite series of cat books Catwings, by Ursula K. Le Guin]

[ publisher’s official Chato’s Kitchen web site ] | [ official Gary Soto web site ]

Recommended by Carrie K.
Bennett Martin Public Library

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!