You were a high school English teacher at one
time. What do you wish you knew then that you
now know as a reader, writer, and lover of words?
My first public school teaching assignment
was teaching Spanish to every child in grades K-6
at a new school. I was an English major who had
planned to teach high school, but I was bilingual.
That first semester before I managed a transfer to
a middle school to teach reading and spelling was
a real challenge. The next two years, I finally
taught at a high school.
What I say in the unpublished manuscript is
that I wished I’d been writing when I taught
writing in high school, the community college,
and the university. I love to cook and garden. It
would be difficult to teach either well if I weren’t
experimenting in the kitchen and garden myself
Your questions have brought to the surface the
sadness and frustration that every writer feels at
not placing a manuscript.
You and your family have been instrumental
in creating a special event celebrating children and
books during National Poetry Month—El Dia ́de
los Nin ̃os/El Dia ́de los Libros, as well as the
Estela and Rau ́l Mora Award. What should teach-
ers and parents know about this special event and
how can they join in on the celebration?
It’s impossible to give a brief answer to a
family literacy project that has absorbed so
much of my time for ten years. Key points:
what began as the desire to create an annual
celebration has grown to the concept that El
Dia ́de los Nin ̃os/El Dia ́de los Libros, Children’s
Day/Book Day, is a daily commitment to link
ALL children to books, languages and cultures.
Families are key educational partners in this
work. We celebrate this daily commitment
nationally on April 30th.
This project is now housed at the Association
for Library Service for Children (ALSC), a divi-
sion of the American Library Association. The
project has flourished thanks to the commitment
of librarians, parents and teachers. I have plenty
of information on my Web site http://www.patmora.
com. I hope that teachers and parents who share
the desire to foster book joy in their homes and
schools will be leaders in bringing this commit-
ment and celebration to their communities.
You are the keynote speaker for the Children’s
Literature Assembly’s Annual Breakfast at NCTE
this coming November 19th in Nashville, TN. Your
talk is entitled, ‘‘Early Morning Eye-Openers &
Tall Tales.’’ Will you give us a ‘‘trailer’’?
Yikes! 7:30 a.m. I’m more of a night person
than a morning one and know that the alarm will
ring mighty early on Sunday at NCTE. But, I’m
delighted and honored to be speaking at the
Assembly and grateful to Random House, pub-
lishers ofDon ̃a Flor: A Tall Tale About a Giant
Woman with a Great Big Heart, available in
English and Spanish, for sponsoring me. I so
enjoy being with people who love children and
books and look forward to sharing some secrets
as we wake up together.
Pat, I’m a night person, too—but, I’m going
to make sure my alarm is set extra early. I am
truly looking forward to your speech!
Source:T. Gail Pritchard and Patrick W. Pritchard, ‘‘An
Interview with Pat Mora: The Reader and Writer,’’ in
Journal of Children’s Literature, Vol. 32, No. 2, Fall 2006,
pp. 23–26.Patrick D. Murphy
In the following essay, Murphy discusses Pat
Mora’s ideas on cultural conservation.
Pat Mora writes inNepantla: Essays from the
Land in the Middlethat the United States ‘‘has both
the opportunity and responsibility to demonstrate
to this world of emerging representative govern-
ments that nurturing variety is central, not mar-
ginal to democracy’’ (19). The use of the word
‘‘nurturing’’ seems in no way fortuitous, because
she recognizes natural and cultural diversity as
integral threads of the lifeweb labeled Humanity,
which is one thread of a much larger lifeweb
labeled Earth. As a result, she calls for emphasizing
cultural conservation with the same enthusiasm
with which some movements labor for ‘‘historical
preservation’’ and ‘‘natural conservation’’ (18).
This recognition of the interrelationship of natural
and cultural diversity and emphasis on the nurtur-
ing practice of cultural conservation are to be
found throughout the poetry ofChants(1985),
Borders(1986), andCommunion(1991), as well as
Nepantla(1993), of which she says: ‘‘The essays are
about my encounters with my world’’ (Nepantla9).
Pat Mora is a Chicana who began writing
around 1980 and has won awards for both her
poetry and her children’s books. Born in 1942, she
grew up, raised three children, and worked in El
Paso before moving in 1989 to Cincinnati, Ohio.
She has taught at the high school, community
college, and university levelsandservedinvarious
administrative capacities at the University ofUncoiling