Loris Lora: Hi, my name is Loris Lora, and I'm the illustrator of May Your Life Be Deliciosa, written by Michael Genhart and illustrated by me.

May Your Life Be Deliciosa is a book about a Mexican family coming together during the holidays to make tamales. With every step Abuelita shows Rosie and the other grandchildren how to make their life delicious, filled with love, spice and family.

I was reached by the publishers Cameron Books and when I heard about it, they were instantly like a yes, so it was like I want to celebrate my Mexican culture and kind of show my own experiences within the illustrations. So I was very much inspired by my own family experiences, colorful Mexican folk art. That's something that's I draw from in my illustrations in general. I love that side of me and just finding old photos of Latinx families coming together and just really celebrating the culture so that's something I really drew upon when I was making these illustrations.

Part of the process was reading the text and drawing from my own experiences. After reading each line or set of texts, I would draw and just piece every spread together to something that makes sense for the book. Drawing upon old pictures of families, my own experiences thinking back of how, as a family, we would make tamales together and just bringing those memories and trying to put them down on paper.

My favorite parts of this book are showing Abuelita's memory. One of my favorite things that you get to see is her growing up as a little girl up to adulthood. So it's great to see her in these settings and seeing her grow up and then pass the torch on to her grandchildren like Rosie and the other kids.

I really hope readers find and celebrate their own family traditions, as simple as they are. When I was little making tamales with family, I kind of overlooked that. But as an adult, I'm really drawn to it, and I'm celebrating what it is to make things with family.

This is a page from May Your Life Be Deliciosa.

She applies the dough to the husk, not too thick and not too thin. She explains, "La masa comes from corn. Like a corn stalk, may you always stand tall and proud." Pararte erguida y orgullosa

The reason I picked this spread is because it shows Abuela's hands making the tamale and on the right side, it shows young Abuelita in a market with her mother and her grandmother, and they're shopping for ingredients. So I thought this spread was really nice because a black and white market, but you can still sense that it's filled with color and just different types of vegetables and I guess a very market setting.