The Voices of Hope Poems, Stories, and Drawings by the Children of La Esperanza, Guatemala Las Voces de la Esperanza Poemas, Cuentos y Dibujos de los Ninos de La Esperanza, Guatemala Edited and Translated by Carolyn Alessio Foreword by Luis Alberto Urrea   May 2003 ISBN 0-8093-2476-8, $13.95 paper 72 pages, 6 x 8, 16 illus. Poetry / Literature / Children's Interest   “Each translator knows that along with the gift of speaking comes the responsibility of hearing. All real translators must learn to listen. But the really great ones then learn to make us listen as well. . . . The text that follows is truly a celebration.” —Luis Alberto Urrea, from the Foreword    Collected and translated by Carolyn Alessio, this bilingual anthology of poems, stories, memories, and philosophies was written and illustrated by the children of La Esperanza, Guatemala. Drawing upon the fortitude of their mothers, who began hand-sewing crafts to sell in the United States in order to survive the hardships of this war-torn impoverished country, Alessio’s students, aged four to sixteen, reveal amazing survival skills, fertile imaginations, and dreams of attaining better lives. The resulting work is a collection of poems and drawings that are terse, funny, sometimes sad, but always humanly, gloriously alive.   As Alessio explains, “At first, I thought I might be imagining the echoes of magical realism, but as I continued to read the students’ writing and study their drawings, I found similar themes. Witches killed children who didn’t respect the spirits; women abused by their husbands sought refuge in trees with magical doors. People who didn’t have money or jobs lived on the road and in forests, where they alternately fought and partied with the animals.”     The volume features a foreword from Luis Alberto Urrea, author of Across the Wire: Life and Hard Times on the Mexican Border and By the Lake of Sleeping Children: The Secret Life of the Mexican Border.       Carolyn Alessio teaches English at Cristo Rey Jesuit High School in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood. She has taught creative writing and literature and has worked as an editor and writer for the Chicago Tribune and as a prose editor for the Crab Orchard Review. Her work has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, TriQuarterly, Boulevard, and several anthologies.   The Name like a Garden   My name is like a garden and I bathe myself every day  because they water me every day. And I have scarlet flowers and narcissus. In all the houses and also in the buildings and the landscapes, in the mountains and in the drawings I am always there. —Brenda Leticia Juárez Pérez, age 10     My House   My house is like a big cardboard box. My house has windows the same as a box. My house is a square. My house is brown. Boxes are bought and they also bought my house.   —Elizabeth Solares Tinuar, age 11