The Lau family, well-known from Amelia Lau Carlings award winning picture-book Mama and Papa have a Store/La Tienda de Mam y Pap, have been invited to spend Easter with their cousins in Antigua, Guatemala. Although they are Chinese and Buddhist, Mam loves the pageantry of Easter.
Antigua, the former colonial capital of Guatemala, is renowned for its Easter processions. Not only are the statues outstanding examples of Spanish colonial art, they are carried by hundreds of penitents, wreathed in incense. One of the most striking and original features of these processions is the creation of spectacular, ephemeral, sawdust carpets which the processions walk over and destroy. The cobble stone street of the city are lined with these carpets which people spend days creating, only to see them disappear. The heroine of the story helps to make a one of these carpets.
Guatemalan and Chinese religious observances, the Goddess Kuan Yin and the Virgen de Guadalupe, Dragon Boat Races and Easter processions, piatas and baptisms and Chinese tamales all weave in and out of this story that celebrates beauty, religious celebration, and tolerance.
