In 1915, 18-year-old Joaquín del Toro is set to inherit his family’s Texas ranch and is in love with and loved by Dulceña. But trouble is brewing along the U.S.-Mexico border.
K-12
“SHAME THE STARS”
by Guadalupe García McCall
Amazon Recommended Grade Level: 7 and up
Publisher: Tu Books
ISBN-13: 978-1620142783
In 1915, 18-year-old Joaquín del Toro is set to inherit his family’s Texas ranch and is in love with and loved by Dulceña. But trouble is brewing along the U.S.-Mexico border. On one side, the Mexican Revolution is taking hold; on the other, Texas Rangers fight Tejano insurgents, and ordinary citizens are caught in the middle. As tensions grow, Joaquín is torn away from Dulceña, whose father’s critical reporting on the Rangers in the newspaper drives a wedge between their families. But when their family ranch becomes a target, Joaquín must decide how he will stand up for what’s right.
“ALL THE STARS DENIED”
by Guadalupe García McCall
Amazon Recommended Grade Level: 7 and up
Publisher: Lee & Low Books
ISBN-13: 978-1620142813
During the Great Depression, Texas is gripped by drought, and resentment is building among white farmers against Mexican Americans. This resentment leads to signs going up proclaiming “No Dogs or Mexicans” and “No Mexicans Allowed.” When Estrella organizes a protest against the treatment of tejanos in their town of Monteseco, Texas, her whole family becomes a target of “repatriation” efforts to send Mexicans “back to Mexico”—whether they were ever Mexican citizens or not. Dumped across the border and separated from half her family, Estrella must figure out a way to survive and care for her mother and baby brother.
“SUMMER OF THE MARIPOSAS”
by Guadalupe García McCall
Publisher Recommended Reading Level: Grades 5 - 6
Publisher: Tu Books
ISBN-13: 978-1620140109
When Odilia and her four sisters find a dead body, they embark on a journey to return the dead man to his family in Mexico. But returning home to Texas turns into a fantastical odyssey. With the aid of ghostly La Llorona, Odilia and her little sisters travel to their long-lost grandmother’s house. Along the way, they must outsmart a witch and her Evil Trinity: a warlock, a coven of half-human barn owls and a chupacabra. Can these fantastic trials prepare Odilia and her sisters for what happens when they face their final test: returning home to the real world?
“THE CHANKAS AND THE PRIEST: A TALE OF MURDER AND EXILE IN HIGHLAND PERU”
by Sabine Hyland
Publisher: Penn State University Press
ISBN-13: 978-0271071220
How does society deal with a serial killer? What if he is a Catholic priest living among villagers in colonial Peru? In “THE CHANKAS AND THE PRIEST” Sabine Hyland chronicles the horrifying story of Father Juan Bautista de Albadán, a Spanish priest to the Chanka people of Pampachiri in Peru from 1601 to 1611. Drawing on a collection of documents found in archives in the Americas and Europe, Hyland reveals what life was like for the Chankas under this man, and how his actions sparked the instability that would characterize Chanka political and social history for the next 123 years.
Higher Education
“ONCE@9:53AM: TERROR IN BUENOS AIRES”
by Ilan Stavans, Marcelo Brodsky, and with an afterword by Ilan Stavans
Publisher: Penn State University Press
ISBN-13: 978-0271077185
At 9:53 on the morning of July 18, 1994, a suicide bomber drove a van loaded with explosives into the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina, a Jewish community center in Once, Buenos Aires. The explosion left eighty-five people dead and more than three hundred wounded. Originally published in Spanish, “ONCE@9:53AM: TERROR IN BUENOS AIRES” imagines the two hours before the attack through the format of the fotonovela. Part documentary, part fiction, this English edition includes a new essay by Ilan Stavans detailing the aftermath of the attack and the faulty investigations that have yet to yield any arrests or reach resolution.
“CONTESTING CONQUEST: INDIGENOUS PERSPECTIVES ON THE SPANISH OCCUPATION OF NUEVA GALICIA, 1524–1545”
by Ida Altman
Publisher: Penn State University Press
ISBN-13: 978-0271078564
“CONTESTING CONQUEST” presents a set of indigenous and Spanish accounts that document Spain’s efforts to establish control over western Mexico during the first half of the sixteenth century. Though the 1521 defeat of the Mexica of Tenochtitlan signaled the downfall of the Aztec empire, large areas outside of central Mexico still remained beyond the Spaniards’ control. Home to groups such as the Maya of present-day Yucatan and Guatemala, these regions were remarkably resilient in the face of Spanish conquest. Ida Altman provides the first English translations of a set of accounts that directly reflect the perspectives of these indigenous peoples.
“MEXICAN COSTUMBRISMO: RACE, SOCIETY, AND IDENTITY IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY ART”
by Mey-Yen Moriuchi
Publisher: Penn State University Press
ISBN-13: 978-0271079073
The years following Mexican independence in 1821 were critical to the development of social, racial and national identities. The visual arts played a decisive role in this process. “MEXICAN COSTUMBRISMO” reorients current understanding of this key period in the history of Mexican art by focusing on a distinctive genre of painting that emerged between 1821 and 1890: costumbrismo. Costumbrista artists portrayed the quotidian lives of the lower to middle classes, their clothes, food, dwellings and occupations. Mey-Yen Moriuchi argues, these works engaged with notions of universality and difference, transforming the way Mexicans saw themselves and how other nations saw them.
“UNDER THE MESQUITE”
by Guadalupe García McCall
Amazon Recommended Grade Level: 7 – 9
Publisher: Lee & Low Books
ISBN-13: 978-1600604294
As the oldest of eight siblings, Lupita is used to taking the lead, but when she discovers Mami has been diagnosed with cancer, Lupita is terrified by the possibility of losing her mother. In the midst of juggling life as a high school student, testing her wings as an actress and dealing with friends who don’t always understand, Lupita desperately wants to support her mother. Struggling to keep the family afloat, she escapes the chaos of home by writing in the shade of a mesquite tree. Overwhelmed by change and loss, she takes refuge in the healing power of words.
