Condor Book Tours Presents: Mi Barrio by Robert Renteria ~ A Virtual Book Tour

ECONDOR BOOK TOURS

PRESENTS

Mi Barrio 

by Robert Renteria

 

(SmarterComics/Writers of the Round Table, 2011)

As Told To Corey Michael Blake

Illustrated by Shane Clester 

ISBN-10: 1610660005 

ISBN-13: 978-1610660006

http://fromthebarrio.com

Book Tour Schedule:

Mon June 20 thru Fri July 1

Author Robert Renteria and his graphic novel Mi Barrio will be stopping by each of the following blogs from 6/20 thru 7/1. Make sure you stop by and say hello, you may just win a copy of Mi Barrio by Robert Renteria!

WEEK 1


Mon June 20 Musings http://nilkibenitez.blogspot.com
Tues June 21 Dulce Bread & Book Shop http://dulcebreadandbookshop.com/
Wed June 22 Frankie Benítez http://juliorvarela.com/
Thurs June 23 Brown Girl BookSpeak http://books.browngirlspeaks.com/
Fri June 24  Latina Book Club http://www.latinabookclub.com/
 
WEEK 2

Join us for an author livechat

 Sunday June 26th at 7pm Eastern/6pm Central  

at Condor Book Tour's

  Author Chat Salon!

Mon June 27 VivirLatino http://vivirlatino.com/

 

Tues June 28 Blogs By Latinas http://www.clicklatina.com/
Wed June 29 Dos Idiomas/Two Languages http://www.ofelianj.com/
Thurs June 30 Juan of Words  http://www.juanofwords.com/
Fri July 1 Sammy Makes Six http://www.sammymakessix.com/

***Have questions for the author? Want to share your experience? Have a youth that could use some motivation and inspiration? Grab them & your friends and join us for an author livechat on Sunday June 26th at 7pm Eastern/6pm Central at Condor Book Tours' Author Chat Salon.

A few words from the Robert Renteria:

Mi Barrio Reviews

Adapted from the book From the Barrio to the Board Room (2008) by Renteria, who created a foundation that brings his message of hope to inner-city schools...Mi Barrio hits all the familiar points in a straightforward first-person narrative that eschews subtlety in favor of its lessons, while the artwork conveys the clean, efficient sense of a corporate brochure. However, it has the undeniable gravity of the truth and its inspirational message does come through loud and clear as Renteria, encouraged by his loving mother and grandfather, learns a sense of discipline in the army and employs a philosophy of hard work, a never-quit spirit, and a drive to live out what he describes as “the American Dream.” Grades 6-9. --Jesse Karp (BookList)

This inspirational title, produced by the business books–into–comics outfit Writers of the Round Table, adapts businessman Renteria's 2008 memoir about his hard-knock life into a punchy, easy-to-digest story. Renteria grew up with a single mother in a rough Los Angeles neighborhood during the 1970s, where he did everything that should have gotten him killed: running with gangs, selling drugs, the works. A stint in the military straightened him out, but didn't provide many prospects for employment. After knocking around in Chicago, Renteria convinced the owner of a laundry sales company to take a chance on him. Cut to years later, and Renteria is a wealthy salesman who has started his own company and now also mentors and lectures about getting out of the ghetto grind (his quick answer: hard work). Clester's art is more highly accomplished than is usually seen in true-life graphic adaptations, and while Renteria's tendency to gloss over the details can leave his story feeling sketchy at times, it's a work whose hard-won sense of hopefulness outweighs any hint of preachiness.
(Publishers Weekly)

Mi Barrio Book Trailer

*Ed Note: Schedule Correction was made for Friday June 24 & Monday June 27

Virtual Book Tour: Bernardo and the Virgin by Silvio Sirias

The first Virtual Book Tour for Condor Book Tours (a service from my start-up nilki benitez communications) is well under way!

Bernardo and the Virgin by Silvio Sirias is the story of a simple man, a campesino, to whom in 1980, the Virgin Mary appeared.  This is one of the few Marian apparitions that the Catholic church has approved.

The novel, although based on facts, including extensive interviews with Bernardo Martínez (August 20, 1931-October 30, 2000) by the author, is also an exploration of the Nicaraguan people during a tumultuous time in Nicaragua's political history.

From the Posdata of Bernardo and the Virgin:

On May 8, 1980, the Virgin Mary appeared to Bernardo Martínez-a poorly educated, forty-eight-year-old tailor--in a cow pasture on the outskirts fo the town of Cuapa, in Nicaragua.  This "true" incident took place less than ten months after the Sandinistas overthrew the half-century-old Somoza dynasty and two years before the full onset of the Contra War, the bloodiest military conflict in that nation's history.

My interest in Bernardo's story arose when I returned to Nicaragua--after nearly a twenty-year absence--and met the seer, in March of 1999.  By that time the country had been at peace for a decade.  Upon hearing Bernardo's life story, I immediately knew that the best way to capture its many dramtaic and magical dimensions was through fiction.  As Joseph Campbell posits in The Hero with a Thousand Faces, to try to render miraculous events in a straightforward manner, narrating them as the truth, will always lead a writer into bathos.  In other words, in striving to accurately describe the sublime nature of Bernardo's experience, I would have inevitably overreached and toppled into the absurd.  His tale, and the tales of his compatriots, deserve better....

What you find in these pages, then, is Bernardo Martínez as I have recreaed him, and as seen through the eyes of the other characters--every one of them, beyond argument, fictional.  Nevertheless, most of the events related within, even the miracles, have their basis in occurrences that have taken place, or are believed to have taken place...

Regardless, one of my objectives was to immerse the reader in the lives of Nicaraguans during the latter part of the twentieth century...My hope is that this novel will give readers some insight into what it has meant to be a Nicaraguan during such tumultuous times.  


Bernardo de Cuapa died on October 30, 2000.  His remains are buried in the town's old church, just a few steps away from where the image of la Virgen first illuminated for him.  The Nicaraguan Catholic Church has declared his former cow pasture, the place of the apparitions, a holy site.  
El Pueblo de San Francisco de Cuapa is most welcoming to all pilgrims and visitors.

So far during the book tour Bernardo and the Virgin and author Silvio Sirias have visited the following blogs:

Tonight there will be a Live Chat with the author at Condor Book Tour's Author Chat Salon starting at 7pm-8pm EST.  Come by and say hello!

Next week the book tour continues with the following stops:

Mon June 14   The Tranquilo Traveler
Tues June 15   Brown Girl Speaks
Wed June 16   The Book Nook
Thur June 17  Pisti Totol-Black Bird
Fri June 18     Musings


Finishing off with a second Live Chat on Friday June 18th 7-8pm at Condor Book Tour's Author Chat Salon.

Here are some exciting details about this Book Tour:

100% commissions generated through books bought through Condor Books (an Amazon affiliate site) will be donated to Unicef's Storybook Gift, which delivers culturally-appropriate children's books to children in need around the world. So buy your copy now!

Dulce Bread and Book Store is our featured Independent Bookstore for this tour, please visit and support your indie book store!




All participants in this book tour (leave a comment at any participating blog) are entered to win a Kuna Mola.  The mola is the signature craft of the Kuna Indian women of Panama. The Kuna Indians live in Kuna Yala, known commonly as the San Blas Islands, an archipelago of more than 300 islands on Panama’s north coast.

Bernardo and the Virgin by Silvio Sirias: Virtual Book Tour Coming Soon!

             Bernardo and The Virgin (Northwestern University Press) 
                                         by Silvio Sirias 
 

From Northwestern University Press:

In 1980, with the Sandinistas newly in power, tailor and pig farmer Bernardo Martinez witnesses an extraordinary thing: an otherworldly glow about the statue of the Virgin Mary in the church where he works as sacristan. 

Soon the Holy Virgin appears. She tells Bernardo to forget his money problems and fear of ridicule and spread her message of peace and faith to his neighbors. 

Though a work of fiction, Bernardo and the Virgin is based on actual events in Bernardo Martinez's life. The visitation of the Virgin Mary at Cuapa, Nicaragua, remains one of the few such events accepted by the Roman Catholic Church in the last sixty years. Silvio Sirias' sweeping novel tells many stories: that of a humble man touched by the transcendent; that same man as a devout boy denied the priesthood because of poverty; and those in his orbit, past and present. It is also the stormy epic of Nicaragua through the long Somoza years to the Sandinista revolution. 

Sirias' beautiful language mixes English with Spanish and details of dusty village life with wondrous images of Catholic mysticism. His portrayal of the rich recent past of Central America resonates with the experiences of both the natives and the thriving communities of Nicaraguans, Salvadorans, and others putting down roots in the United States.

"The details of Bernardo's Nicaragua are wholly entertaining and enticing, with images of Catholic mysticism juxtaposed against the particulars of life in the dusty village of Cuapa. Sirias' prose is lovely." --San Antonio Express-News

*********

I'm truly excited to be working with author Silvio Sirias again.  This time, promoting Bernardo and the Virgin; a truly wonderful, compassionate work and a mystical story.

More details (including the Book Tour schedule) coming soon!