Steps
Pasos

Book Descrip­tion

This book includes the biogra­phies of three very dif­fer­ent indi­vid­u­als, each a remark­able con­trib­u­tor to her/her society.

Movie artist and singer Rita Moreno had very hum­ble begin­nings as a Puerto Rican child grow­ing up in New York. She has worked very hard to achieve excel­lence in her art, and has received mul­ti­ple hon­ors includ­ing the best pos­si­ble in her career the Oscar, Tony and Emmy awards.

Fer­nando Botero is an inno­v­a­tive painter and sculp­ture. His art is char­ac­ter­ized by human fig­ures of very large pro­por­tions which make his style very distinguishable.

Eve­lyn Cis­neros achieved the suc­cess of becom­ing the first bal­le­rina of the famous San Fran­cisco Bal­let as a result of a com­bi­na­tion of her nat­ural tal­ent and grace and a life of study and practice.

Author’s Note

José Martí, extra­or­di­nary writer and excep­tional human being, liked to say “Hon­rar, honra” imply­ing that when we honor those who deserve it, we some­how par­take of the honor. His mes­sage that it is impor­tant to honor those who have open roads that we now travel has inspired this biog­ra­phy series.

Alma Flor and I would like chil­dren to real­ize that the peo­ple we admire earned that admi­ra­tion as they faced life with courage and dig­nity, deter­mined not to be stopped by dif­fi­cul­ties, but con­sis­tently fol­low­ing their dreams.

It is our great hope that chil­dren will rec­og­nize that hum­ble begin­nings or phys­i­cal lim­i­ta­tions, while cre­at­ing unques­tion­able chal­lenges, should not be seen as impos­si­ble bar­ri­ers, and that these biogra­phies will be for them an inspiration.