Celebrate Cinco de Mayo and learn about Mexico with these books

 I gathered several books together to help explain what Cinco de Mayo is and to teach about our southern neighbor.  I love learning about other counties, their languages, food, and culture.  We don't need a holiday or celebration to learn about other cultures, but it does make it fun.

What is Cinco de Mayo? A day of Mexican music, and tacos!  Yes, there is music, and tacos, but there is a reason for this fiesta.  Two books I've found to be informative and easy to read to children explaining Cinco de Mayo are Marco's Cinco de Mayo by Lisa Bullard and Celebrate Cinco de Mayo with the Mexican Hat Dance.

Marco's Cinco de Mayo


Written by Lisa Bullard
Illustrated by Holli Conger

This cute children's book follows Marco as he tells us about his family as Mexican Americans.  He is a dancer in the celebration and is worried about his steps so his cousin tells him the history of Cinco de Mayo. The book shows how he celebrates the day.

The story is easy to read, and I like that there are purple fact bubbles on almost every page that goes into more detail.  You can read the story without the bubbles and still get the picture if you are reading to a large group, and just point out some additional facts, but if you are reading one on one take the time to read those bubbles in more depth.

The illustrations help tell the story and will keep the children's attention, they are well done and colorful.

At the end of the book there are resources and activities for you to do with your family or students.  There are directions to make your own maracas, a glossary, a list of other books, and websites to visit to learn Spanish.


Celebrate Cinco de Mayo with the Mexican Hat Dance


written by F. Isabel Campoy and Alma Flor Ada
Translated by Joe Hayes and Sharon Franco
Illustrated by Marcela Gomez and David Silva

My girls and I doing the hat dance

This is a two part book.  Part one is a story, song, and dance for the Mexican Hat Dance.  The story follows a class as they learn the dance, tell about how they prepared for their celebration and put on a show.  Personally after trying to pronounce "jarabe tapatio" and failing to do so I decided that I didn't need this part for my lesson and skipped to the second part of the book.  The illustrations are full of color and tell the story better than I could read it.

Gather your class together or your kids at home and do the Mexican Hat dance!  It's easy to learn, and fun to do.  Don't be surprised if you have the song stuck in your head after.

The second part of this small book is my favorite.  "What is Cinco de Mayo?"  This part goes more in depth than Marco's Cinco de Mayo, explaining more of the history, why there are celebrations in the United States for this holiday that's in a different country, and what families do and eat on May 5th.

I love that illustrations are incorporated around actual photographs in this section of the book.  On the first page you can ask what the children see as part of Mexican culture, and continue on as you read, see if the children have seen any of these same sights. In the back of the book credits they have a thumbnail of each photo and tell you who the photographer was, where it was taken, and what it's of.

Between these two books I've learned a lot about Cinco de Mayo along with the children.  So before I go on to my other books let me share with you not everything that is in the books but to answer what this holiday is about.

Spain use to rule Mexico, until 1821 when after more than a decade of fighting Mexico had won it's freedom.  Then in 1861 the French invaded Mexico, the French army was much bigger than the Mexican.  On May 5. 1862 at the Battle of Puebla, Mexico had a victory.  This win did not win the war for Mexican army, but it gave them all hope.  Not in these children's book is the details that this was taking place during the same time as the United States Civil War (1861-1865) and that Napoleon III was ruling France.  Napoleon pulled his forces from Mexico in 1866, and the last of the French troops who stayed behind were executed in 1867.

Cinco de Mayo is not celebrating Mexico's independence, but rather their resilience.  It's celebrating that one victory that gave them hope.

Did you know that there are parts of the US where the Cinco de Mayo celebrations are larger than they are in Mexico?

Now that we know about Cinco de Mayo let's learn and teach about Mexico.
Off We Go To Mexico! An Adventure in the Sun


Written by Laurie Krebs
Illustrated by Christopher Corr

This book is wonderful!  If there was one book for young children that I had to recommend above all the others to learn about Mexico it would be this one.    Laurie Krebs has done a great job taking children on a journey through Mexico.  Done in short three sentence stance, with fun rhymes, it's an easy read that delivers culture, and sights.  From mountains, to the beach Laurie Krebs shows us Mexico.  On the page opposite the verse are four words that she translates from English to Spanish so you can either read the book cover to cover without using the Spanish words, or take your time and point out the train in the illustration and translate to "el tren."

The illustrations are full double page spread, showing the part of the culture and geography that is talked about on that page.  They are engaging and colorful.

I love that at the end of the book there is a map showing Mexico and you can point out the Ocean, and the countries that border Mexico.  Also there are a couple pages that share facts about Mexico, their large holidays (Cinco de Mayo is not listed in there, and did you know that their Independence Day is really a two day celebration?!)  There's a great spread that shares the history of Mexico going back to 10,000 B.C. up to present.  They are short paragraphs about each time period. Then on the very last page there are a couple more basic Spanish phrases.

This is a book about Mexico that you can pull out and use any time of year.


For older children, if they are working on a project about Mexico or just want more information I have to share with you The Land and the People MEXICO by Cath Senker.


This book is packed full of all sorts of information about Mexico.  It covers everything from history, the economy, the people, the rain forest, the climate, the culture and more.  There are photographs on every page for what it looks like in real life, and each section has a paragraph or so about different things having to do with the main topic for that page.  For example Go Wild! is about the wildlife in and around Mexico.  They talk about vultures, mountain lions, Jaguars, armadillos, Marlin, along with other fish, birds, and animals and their habitats. 
For my family story time I'm only picking out a few facts out of the book to share with the kids because it's not a read aloud book, not a story time one, but one older kids would enjoy and use for reports and to gain more insight.  The pictures are great and I will be showing them off because I think younger children will enjoy flipping through the pages to see the sights.


I hope this gave you a good start and insight into Mexico and gives you something to share with your family for Cinco de Mayo if you chose to celebrate or learn more about it.

Before I go I want to leave you with some more resources, some links where I got additional information.

7 Facts you might not know about Cinco de Mayo
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/cinco-de-mayo
Battle of Puebla



I hope those books help you explore Mexico, and learn about Cinco de Mayo.  If you want some props for your own fiesta check out these below

Tenga un buen dia!

Have a great day!