Los Cuentos de Juan Bobo

by José Ramírez Rivera (Editor), María Cadila de Martínez (Contributor), F. Barbarika (Illustrator)

Juan Bobo es una invención auténtica del pueblo puertorriqueño.

Nuestro antihéroe expresa la vitalidad y tenacidad con que luchan nuestros conciudadanos de limitadas destrezas en busca de un nuevo vivir.

Genres: Spanish Literature

49 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

Reviews

[Saritza]

This was one of the first books I remember reading as a child. My sisters and I would spend a lot of time at Abuelita Sarita's house and her sister, Titi Hedda, used to have books everywhere. She was the superintendent of schools so she made sure that we always had something educational to either read or play with. [Los Cuentos de Juan Bobo] was a book whose cover I'd always gravitate to, even as young as 4 years old. Titi Hedda would read a few stories to me and then ask me to read to her. I read a few stories by myself when I was 5 or 6 and not really understanding much about the book, I enjoyed mostly the refrains: "¡Mas sabe el burro que tú! ¡Bu! ¡Cógelo tú!" My aunt would read it with inflection and she'd change her voice to be slow when Juan Bobo would speak and fast when his mother would rebuke him.

She never made Juan Bobo out to be the bad guy, always made him the moral of the story. Usually it was about education with her. How important it was to be educated so you wouldn't be taken advantage of like Juan Bobo did in the "pueblo". But as an adult, with a child with learning difficulties, I re-read Juan Bobo with a different perspective. The things that as a child I'd laugh about because they were silly (like Juan Bobo breaking the clock by dragging it back to the teacher because the teacher said it ran well) are now things I realize were part of Juan Bobo's mental retardation and not things to laugh at.

As a child, I read this book as entertainment but as an adult, I read it as a parent and in the spirit that it was originally written by Maria Cadilla de Martinez; a representation of the life and character of the jíbaro, the campesino. The puertorican whose simple and humble life was a part of my family's heritage and who may have not been well educated but knew more about how to live off the land and appreciate their patria than most learned folk.

[Margret]

I have been reading Juan Bobo since I was a child. I love it and they are funny, too. Now I have been reading the stories to my grandkids and they love it. It's par of our culture to read Juan Bobo stories.