Americas

Materials from the Americas

People Of Corn: A Mayan Story

From the time they lived in jungle cities with huge stone pyramids, the Mayan people have believed that corn is the spirit of life. This story tells how the first people on earth were actually made from corn. Beginning in the present-day, this lively story explains how important corn is and has always been to the Mayan people of Central America.

Going Home

Carlos and his family are going home for Christmas across the border from California to Mexico. Mama and Papa are excited, but Carlos and his sisters are not so sure. To them, California is home now, even though they were born in Mexico. But as the family drives to their hometown through festive villages and sun-kissed landscapes, Carlos and his sisters discover there’s magic in their roots and that—whether in Mexico or California—home is where the heart is: with one’s family.

See the review at WOW Review, Volume VI, Issue 4

Fisherman and the Turtle

Although this is based on the Grimm Brothers’ The Fisherman and His Wife, the author shifts the setting to Aztec society and reshapes the story so that the fisherman’s good wishes come from a wise old sea turtle. Shortly after he frees the sea turtle from his net, the modest fisherman first asks for four fish–a huge bounty as he usually only catches two–but his wife has other ideas. Her greed forces the fisherman to ask for a stone house and riches and the kingship of the Aztec people. But when she asks to become a god, neither she nor her husband is prepared for how the sea turtle will respond to the wish.

Thing-Thing

Thing-Thing was neither a Teddy bear nor a rabbit; not a stuffed dog or cat. It was something like each of those, and nothing at all you could name. But it had something special. It had the hope that one day it would find a child to love it and talk to it and make it tea parties and take it to bed. A child it could love back. Certainly Archibald Crimp was not that child. He had just thrown Thing-Thing out the open sixth-floor window of the Excelsior Hotel. Oh, dear, thought Thing-Thing to itself. This is bad, this is very bad.

Napi

Napí is a young Mazateca girl who lives with her family in a village on the bank of a river in the Mexican state of Oaxaca. Each afternoon the family sits beneath the shade of a huge ceiba tree and listens to the grandfather’s stories. As Napí listens, she imagines different colors — orange, purple, violet, and green. When night comes, the trees fill with white herons settling on their branches. The ceiba tree sends Napí dreams every night, and in her favorite one, she becomes a heron, gliding freely along the river. Domi’s vibrant palette and magical illustrations perfectly complement this imaginative story.

The Crazy Man

This novel in verse tells the story of a 11-year-old girl struggling to recover after a farm accident leaves her crippled and fatherless.

After Emaline, 11, is crippled by a farm accident with her father’s tractor, Daddy kills her beloved dog, Prince, and walks away from the farm. Mom takes in Angus from the local mental hospital to help with the farm work, but the neighbors complain about the crazy man on the loose. Emaline never denies Angus’ illness, but she sees his kindness and strength, and they help each other with their work and with their grief.

Behind the Mountains

It is election time in Haiti, and bombs are going off in the capital city of Port-au-Prince. During a visit from her home in rural Haiti, Celiane Espérance and her mother are nearly killed. Looking at her country with new eyes, Celiane gains a fresh resolve to be reunited with her father in Brooklyn, New York. The harsh winter and concrete landscape of her new home are a shock to Celiane, who witnesses her parents’ struggle to earn a living, her brother’s uneasy adjustment to American society, and her own encounters with learning difficulties and school violence.

Alfredito Flies Home

Alfredito and his family are getting ready to return to El Salvador for Christmas. It will be their first visit back since they left as refugees and made their way to California on foot. But this time they’re flying! Excitement mounts as Alfredito and his family soar over the Earth and finally arrive at their beloved home to reunite with family and friends. This extraordinary book celebrates an experience familiar to the many who have left their original country to find a new life. Jorge Argueta’s tender, clever prose is perfectly complemented by Luis Garay’s rich, authentic illustrations.