The internationally acclaimed author of The House on Mango Street and winner of the PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature gives us a deeply moving tale of loss, grief, and healing: a lyrically told, richly illustrated fable for grown-ups about a woman’s search for a cat who goes missing in the wake of her mother’s death.
The word “orphan” might not seem to apply to a fifty-three-year-old woman. Yet this is exactly how Sandra feels as she finds herself motherless, alone like “a glove left behind at the bus station.” What just might save her is her search for someone else gone missing: Marie, the black-and-white cat of her friend, Roz, who ran off the day they arrived from Tacoma. As Sandra and Roz scour the streets of San Antonio, posting flyers and asking everywhere, “Have you seen Marie?” the pursuit of this one small creature takes on unexpected urgency and meaning.
With full-color illustrations that bring this transformative quest to vivid life, Have You Seen Marie? showcases a beloved author’s storytelling magic, in a tale that reminds us how love, even when it goes astray, does not stay lost forever.
“A real-life bedtime story for grownups.” —The Seattle Times
“Cisneros captures the experience of grief with moving and visceral clarity. . . . Like the best bedtime stories, [Have You Seen Marie?] both honors the darkness around us and keeps the same darkness at bay." —San Francisco Chronicle
“[A] magical journey . . . . Cisneros has folded powerful themes into this seemingly simple fable: onfronting and accepting the loss of a loved one, the importance of community, the presence of spirituality in our lives and the way that imagination and art can illuminate reality . . . . [Characters] come to life not only in Cisneros’ poetic nuggets of prose, but in Ester Hernández’s sweetly realistic color illustrations . . . . The book glows.” —The Miami Herald “The narrative becomes a springboard for a moving exploration of loss.” —San Antonio Express-News “Unique and uplifting . . . . Have You Seen Marie? does what every good picture book does by creating meaning through experience while being fun to read aloud . . . . Cisneros and Hernández invite the reader to visually enjoy the story, to listen to the music of the words, and have an experience without getting bogged down in self- help monotony.” —El Paso Times “[Have You Seen Marie?] is at its heart a parable for adults, whose themes of death, mourning and loss take on new meaning when presented within a simple tale about a cat gone astray . . . . Full of picturesque illustrations of San Antonio and its colorful characters.” —NBC Latino
“A fable for grieving grown- ups, and . . . medicine for hearts broken from loss.” —CNN
“Cisneros’s gift of storytelling and Ester Hernández’s illustrations bring to life the story about death, grief, and the desire to move forward. This book is a wonderful gift to share with someone who is experiencing the pain of losing a loved one.” —Modern Latina
The internationally acclaimed author of The House on Mango Street and winner of the PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature gives us a deeply moving tale of loss, grief, and healing: a lyrically told, richly illustrated fable for grown-ups about a woman’s search for a cat who goes missing in the wake of her mother’s death.
The word “orphan” might not seem to apply to a fifty-three-year-old woman. Yet this is exactly how Sandra feels as she finds herself motherless, alone like “a glove left behind at the bus station.” What just might save her is her search for someone else gone missing: Marie, the black-and-white cat of her friend, Roz, who ran off the day they arrived from Tacoma. As Sandra and Roz scour the streets of San Antonio, posting flyers and asking everywhere, “Have you seen Marie?” the pursuit of this one small creature takes on unexpected urgency and meaning.
With full-color illustrations that bring this transformative quest to vivid life, Have You Seen Marie? showcases a beloved author’s storytelling magic, in a tale that reminds us how love, even when it goes astray, does not stay lost forever.
Praise
“A real-life bedtime story for grownups.” —The Seattle Times
“Cisneros captures the experience of grief with moving and visceral clarity. . . . Like the best bedtime stories, [Have You Seen Marie?] both honors the darkness around us and keeps the same darkness at bay." —San Francisco Chronicle
“[A] magical journey . . . . Cisneros has folded powerful themes into this seemingly simple fable: onfronting and accepting the loss of a loved one, the importance of community, the presence of spirituality in our lives and the way that imagination and art can illuminate reality . . . . [Characters] come to life not only in Cisneros’ poetic nuggets of prose, but in Ester Hernández’s sweetly realistic color illustrations . . . . The book glows.” —The Miami Herald “The narrative becomes a springboard for a moving exploration of loss.” —San Antonio Express-News “Unique and uplifting . . . . Have You Seen Marie? does what every good picture book does by creating meaning through experience while being fun to read aloud . . . . Cisneros and Hernández invite the reader to visually enjoy the story, to listen to the music of the words, and have an experience without getting bogged down in self- help monotony.” —El Paso Times “[Have You Seen Marie?] is at its heart a parable for adults, whose themes of death, mourning and loss take on new meaning when presented within a simple tale about a cat gone astray . . . . Full of picturesque illustrations of San Antonio and its colorful characters.” —NBC Latino
“A fable for grieving grown- ups, and . . . medicine for hearts broken from loss.” —CNN
“Cisneros’s gift of storytelling and Ester Hernández’s illustrations bring to life the story about death, grief, and the desire to move forward. This book is a wonderful gift to share with someone who is experiencing the pain of losing a loved one.” —Modern Latina
