3.+Literature+List

**Author: George Ancona **
This book is about a present day Mayan family living in Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. The text describes the activities of men, women, and children in a vibrant community around fiesta time. These daily activities described in the book are linked to Mayan customs and traditions. The illustrations include reproductions of ancient Mayan illustrations. There are some Spanish and Mayan words in the text, plus a glossary with descriptions.

**Photographs by: Michel Zabe**
This text dives into the world of the ancient Aztec, Inca, and Maya peoples and their history, beliefs, and rituals. Photographs of jewelry, pottery, cities, and clothing accompany text on corresponding topics such as farming, hunting, family life, etc. Furthermore, there are photographs of the Mexican National Archeological Museum's re-creations of scenes of daily life for these ancient peoples. This is a part of the Eyewitness Book series.

**Author: Bernard Wolf**
This story is from the perspective of a child living in a Zapotec Indian village, Teotitlan del Valle, in Oaxaca, Mexico. This village is known as a center for beautiful hand-woven rugs and tapestries called tapetes. These are similar to those created by the North American Indians. The book is actually filled with photographs, rather than illustrations. These photographs give children a clear picture of the culture.

**Illustrator: Jeanette Winter**
This is a biography about the life of Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. This biography was reissued to make it more child-friendly. Diego goes through some hard times in his life, including his twin brother dying as an infant, and his art depicts the violence of soldiers shooting workers and revolutionaries blowing up trains. This book is written in both Spanish and English.

Author: Laurie Krebs
Appropriate for pre-K to grade 3, this beautifully illustrated picture book provides a story of a family’s trip to Mexico. The illustrations are done in folk art style and provide a sense of what Mexico is like throughout the story. The text rhymes and provides Spanish words along with translations, map, and timeline. This picture book is also available in a Spanish version.

Author: Tony Johnston
This poetry book contains poems in both English and Spanish. The themes of the poems focus on both the land and the culture of Mexico.

Author: Caroline McAlister
This classic Mexican folktale explains the creation of mole, a traditional dish made of turkey, chocolate, spices, and nuts. Not only would it make a great read aloud, but making the classic dish would be a nice accompaniment.

Author: Ethan Zohn and David Rosenberg
This story is entertaining and informational. The storyline follows professional soccer player, Ethan Zohn, throughout Mexico where he explores various landmarks, ancient civilizations, and present day culture. The book is informational, containing math, science, writing, and art projects inspired by Mexico throughout each chapter.

Author: Tomie de Paola
This picture book is the Mexican Cinderella Story. Adelita is Cenicienta – or Cinderella. The story follows the same story line as the American Cinderella story with the Mexican cultural features, especially the use of lots of Mexican vocabulary which is always translated to English.

Illustrator: Yuyi Morales
This picture book is told from the perspective of a young boy who lives with his Grandma, or abuelita. The boy and Abuelita go through daily activities of waking up, stretching, cleaning, getting dressed, eating, and driving. Throughout the book a handful of words are used in both English and Spanish, which teach young readers (and adults) some Spanish vocabulary. At the end of the book we find out Abuilita is a storyteller, which the boy also hopes to be one day.

Illustrator: Jeanette Winter
This picture book introduces the activities involved in Day of the Dead, Dia de Los Muertos, to children. The book teaches some Spanish words and the traditions of Mexican families. The mother makes empenadas, las tias grind chiles to powder, and the family makes tamales. The book beautifully illustrates the procession to the cemetery and explains the celebration, which includes music, flowers, and sugar skulls. The sugar skull replica could be used here as a prop.

Author: Jennifer Nails
This chapter book tells the story of a friendship between an American girl and a girl from Mexico who is actually named Mexico. There friendship begins when Lylice is asked to be Mexico’s English-speaking buddy. This book could be used as a read aloud chapter book for a class. Even though it is not an informative book about Mexico I think it would be good to use as it will show their importance of other having friendships with people who come from other cultures.

Author Mary Dodson Wade, Nanci Reginelli Vargus
This book is more of an educational book because there isn’t much of a story to go along with it. This book talks about the festivities that are done during this holiday and talks about events that led up to the battle. Also at the end of the book there is a vocabulary review.

Illustrator: Janice Lee Porter
This story presents 10 colors that describe an aspect of Mexico. With this story, you can also incorporate an art lesson.

Author: Flor de María Cordero
Here students can learn about the people, customs, and types of food that are eaten in Mexico. It also talks about celebrations. such as a Quince.

Author: Baquedano, Elizabeth and Michel Zabe
Students will have the chance to learn about the rituals and beliefs of the Aztec and their world. This book could be read to the students and then the Aztec calendar will be able to come into play.

Author and Illustrator: Robin Rector Krupp
This shows a journey across Mexico stopping at landmarks, famous cities, museums, and famous elements of nature. The book uses timelines, pictures, maps, captions, and dialogue to give more details about what can be found at each location. It uses Spanish words and the progression of time to focus on traveling across Mexico to different locations.

Author: Philip Steele
This book is a series of newspaper articles. It is all written in present tense and includes articles concerning sports, education, politics, religion, farming, army, and city life. It uses a lot of nonfiction text features with pictures, captions, and definitions. There is also a timeline that describes how the Aztecs influenced Mexican history and culture.

This book focuses on examining Mexico by finding a representation for each letter of the alphabet. It includes things about the gods, geography, home life, cities, religion, and ancient cultures. The book uses diagrams, captions, and maps to summarize the main text.

This is a narrative of when the Spaniards came to conquer the Aztecs. It is read sort of as a diary as the events that occurred are dated as the relationship between Moctezuma and Cortes starts. The book uses pictures and captions to provide additional information that is not elaborated on in the narrative. The book shows how Moctezuma thought Cortes was Quetzalcoatl especially when Cortes was able to show new technologies. It shows the progression as the Spaniards gain control and try to convert the Aztecs. It progresses to show how the Aztecs fought to keep their independence but the Spaniards overcame them. This book is historical fiction as it recounts the events of the Spanish conquering the Aztecs through a narrative point of view.