Over the weekend I read Ghosts by Raina Telgemeier. My kids absolutely love anything by Raina Telgemeier, but I knew this particular book came with some controversy. Ghosts uses the Day of the Dead (Dia de los Muertos) celebration as a way for two sisters to explore their Mexican heritage and as a way to find solace in the younger sister's diagnosis of cystic fibrosis. It is a beautiful story of sisters and family.
The watered down version of the Day of the Dead used in the graphic novel, Ghosts, is there as an attempt to understand death, to honor the memory of ancestors, and to celebrate death the way we celebrate life... that when someone we love dies, they are not forgotten.
If Ghosts has done anything, it has made us as readers question how we use and absorb other cultures' celebrations (sometimes without cultural sensitivity) to tell our own stories. And I believe, when you know better you do better.
With the coming of Halloween, there will inevitably be some party goers who wear makeup and face paint to look like sugar skulls. Sugar skulls represent a departed spirit. Dia de los Muertos is a celebration of the dead to help support their spiritual journey. Families of the departed clean and decorate graves with ofrendas (altars). Perhaps this fall, we can honor Dia de los Muertos more authentically and not attempt to bend it to our idea of Halloween.
Young readers will love Ghosts. And hopefully it will start a conversation in your home about honoring those who have passed and knowing that when each of us does die, we are never truly gone.
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