Reviews

Creepy Creatures and Other Cucuys by Xavier Garza

story_thief's review against another edition

5.0

Disregard what you have read from the other reviewers; this is NOT a children's book. I am only half-kidding. This thing, especially the wonderfully creative and terrifying illustrations by Xavier Garza, gave me nightmares as a kid. I do not know why my mom let me read this when I was only a third or fourth grader when she also thought that Goosebumps would be to much for me and wouldn't let me read that. This is so much scarier than any Goosebumps book by far, with its duendes, lechuzas, chupacabras, a donkey lady, and so many more folkloric cucuys. Looking back, I do appreciate that she let me read it so young; my mom and dad did not pass down these kinds of stories to me through the oral storytelling tradition, so I learned about the legends, folklore, and cucuys of my culture and heritage through this book. This was the primer that would help me to understand all other retelling and reinterpretations that I would come across later. I think part of what scared me the most when I read this as a kid was how uncensored it was. I'm not saying there were curse words or anything like that; it's that the author did not shy away from showing how awful these monsters could be. And sometimes, these monsters were people. If I remember correctly, in the la mano pachona story,

Spoiler

white Texas Rangers frame and hang an innocent Hispanic man because they needed someone to blame for cattle rustling. The innocent Hispanic man did not even speak English, so he didn't know what the Rangers were accusing him of and couldn't defend himself. He cuts off his hand, and it goes around strangling people and writing the word "inocente" with their blood.

I was young and didn't really know about racism towards Hispanics/Mexican-Americans, but I did know that the author was not talking down to his audience of children. Every story is this way.
In short, this collection of stories and their illustrations properly introduced me to the stories of my Mexican-American heritage, gave me nightmares as a kid, and made a positive impact on my life.

_eliza's review against another edition

5.0

YAY! Love Xavier. He's a really cool local author. I'm just jazzed that someone I actually know has such a great book out there. The kids love his stories. They can totally relate, and they dont see it as reading! They're just having fun. They dont see it as work. I was very happy to have been able to hear him read aloud to the kids. They were so into the stories, and the artwork is fantastic. KUDOS galore!

seaofthesun14's review against another edition

5.0

I love how it mentions the valley and the common highways we now travel. An enjoyable and entertaining read.