“A Hero for the Americas: The Legend of
Gonzalo Guerrero”
by Robert Calder
Published by University of Regina Press
Review by Shelley A. Leedahl
$24.95
ISBN 9-780889-775091
Robert Calder's A Hero for the Americas: The Legend of Gonzalo Guerrero is an impeccably-researched and compelling nonfiction
title offering much to ingest, enjoy, and learn from. The GG award-winning
author and Emeritus Professor (U of S) came to his subject as a frequent traveler
to the Yucatán
Peninsula, where the Spanish-born sailor Gonzalo Guerrero and numerous other conquistadors
believed they'd find their fortunes.
A sculpture of Guerrero, "a
powerful figure dressed as a Mayan warrior," first piqued Calder's interest
in the enigmatic 16th Century hero, and indeed, Guerrero's relatively unsung story
(as compared to that of fellow conquistador, Hernán
Cortés)
has all the makings of a Hollywood blockbuster: adventure, battles, romance,
and legacy.
The robust Andalusian sailor defied his
country and Catholic religion after being shipwrecked (of nineteen, only
Guerrero and fellow Spaniard Jerónimo de Aguilar survived) off the Yucatán
Peninsula in 1512. Guerrero was enslaved by a Mayan chief; earned the tribe's
respect; married the chief's daughter; became a Chactemal military captain; and
fathered the first mestizaje children
in Mexican history.
There's more. Both Aguilar and Guerrero
lived in Mayan captivity for seven years before the former happily reunited
with the eventual Aztec-conquering Cortés, on Cozumel. Aguilar told an
incredulous Cortés about their countryman who'd embraced Mayan culture, adopting
everything from their language to unique tribal piercings and tattoos. Through
Aguilar, Cortés compelled the "Spaniard-turned-Maya" to rejoin his
countrymen, and Guerrero politely but definitively refused.
Calder writes that Guerrero's legend as
both a warrior and a father are
integral. He explains that he hopes to help readers "trace [Guerrero's]
path through the tumultuous and quickly changing life of fifteenth-and
sixteenth-century Spain and of the New World," while allowing that the
hero's story straddles "the unstable border between history and fiction,
between fact and folklore," as Guerrero left no written account of his
experience. Little's even known of his death, though it's suspected he died in
Honduras, and his family likely "melted into the jungle".
While Guerrero's definitely the star of
this story, the book's also ripe with information on myriad subjects, including
the history of maize; Queen Isabella's admission that "she only had two
baths in her life;" the historical Mayan practice of flattening a
newborn's head between two boards for several months "to [produce] a
permanent sloping forehead and elongated skull … considered a mark of the
ruling class;" and the Cortés-Malinche story. Malinche was the Nahua slave
with the "aristocratic bearing" who was "given" to Cortés,
acted as his interpreter, bore his son, and greatly aided in the Spanish
conquest of the Aztecs. In contrast, Guerrero was "recast as the heroic
opponent of Spanish hegemony".
Calder illuminates a part of Mexican
history that's long lived in the shadows: the history of the mestizos, who make up 60% of Mexico's
population. This book ably demonstrates why a "plurality of perspectives"
is critical, and while it should almost be required reading for all beach
tourists in Mexico, it's a lesson we can also take to heart in Canada.
THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL
BOOKSTORE OR FROM WWW.SKBOOKS.COM
__________
"An Assortment: Darkly Delicious
Literary & Visual Oddments"
by Marie Elyse St. George
Published by Your Nickel’s Worth
Publishing
Review by Shelley A. Leedahl
$19.95
ISBN 978-1-927756-83-6
The enticing title of Marie Elyse St.
George's latest book says it all. Delve into this tickle trunk of poems,
stories (both fictions and truths), drawings, paintings, and cartoons, plus a tribute to now long-passed writer
Anne Szumigalski, and you'll indeed find something darkly delicious to make you
smile, laugh, and think.
Saskatoon's
St. George has earned an esteemed reputation as both a visual artist and a
writer, and a career highlight's been her 1995 poetry and art collaboration
(with close friend Szumigalski) Voice, which
resulted in both an exhibition at the Mendel Art Gallery and a book which
garnered the Governor General's Award for Poetry in 1995. She's also
collaborated with poet Patrick Lane, provided art for the covers of numerous
literary journals and books, and published an award-winning memoir.
While
reading An Assortment: Darkly Delicious
Literary & Visual Oddments, I procured an image of a young girl
skipping through a field of wildflowers, plucking blossoms here and there for
an atypical bouquet. This image was no doubt hastened by the book's cover
image–a photo of the author as a girl beneath what I'm guessing's a rose
arbour–and by the tantalizing whimsy of both the artwork (ie: the full-colour
"Origin of Angels") and the clever humour in the text.
To
read St. George is to leap into worlds that include opinionated silver fox
stoles who malign the fact that "Times have changed," and art
openings and fashion are not what they once were: "The pretty young ladies
in the formal gowns you so admire are art students wearing '40s and '50s clothes
as a comment on continuing sexism."
In the story "Who Was That Masked Dog?" a precocious child
converses with a guard dog who speaks in the "hearty, courteous manner of
Teddy Roosevelt," and in "Feeding Amelia" we learn that a
talking shark has eaten Amelia Earhart: "I absorbed her spirit and
courage, but I must say, her leather coat and boots were quite
indigestible".
In
her poetry, as well, St. George gifts inanimate objects with life. Words
themselves can be "rude they
elbow their way/in front of the correct ones and make you look a fool" or
they can "spread their shimmering skirts/fold their hands and smile
fondly". In her poem "Some Secondhand Clothes" we read that the
subjects in the title "resent being bundled from their cozy closets".
I
particularly enjoyed hilarious "Hazel," in the opening story, who
endures her husband's loathsome wilderness expeditions and has learned a
plethora of strange skills, including "how to use wild herbs to season a
ragout of grasshoppers".
The
fleeting nature of inspiration, a stillborn fraternal twin, soldiers, the
challenges associated with aging, and the influence of animals-from mice to
grey foxes to "elephants listening to lies they tell themselves"-are
all subjects that walk through the wildflower fields with that imaginative
little girl, who grew to be a talented writer and artist. This entertaining
"amalgam of fantasy and reality" is well worth the read.
THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL
BOOKSTORE OR FROM WWW.SKBOOKS.COM
__________
“Christmas A to Z”
by Susan Harris
Published by White Lily Press
Review by Shelley A. Leedahl
$12.00
ISBN 978-0-9949869-1-7
Christmas. Even the very youngest
children get caught up in the excitement–the gifts, the tree, and of course,
Santa Claus–and to help celebrate and explain some of the season's symbols,
celebrations, and emotions, Saskatchewan writer Susan Harris has added to her
shelf of children's books with a new title, the brightly illustrated Christmas A to Z. It's important to note
that this is a secular Christmas alphabet book; Harris previously published An Alphabet of the First Christmas: A
Christian Alphabet Book, as well as several other titles for young
children.
The book begins with a broad
dedication: "For boys and girls who love Christmas," and ends with a
sweet letter from Harris to her young readers. The author uses a gentle tone to
address her "Little Friend[s]," and her experience as a former
teacher comes across in the letter's engaging text. "Did you know that it
does not snow in some countries? I grew up in the country of Trinidad, which is
an island, and it does not snow there," she writes. "Do you have a
favourite present you received for Christmas, Little Friend? Mine was a little
doll whom I named Jane."
This is not a busy book, which will be appealing for those just learning to read,
and for the adults who may be sharing this story with youngsters. The
twenty-six alphabet pages contain little text, the letters and definitions
appears in a large black font, and there is much white space surrounding the
pictures.
As a writer myself, I'm always interested
in what alphabet book authors choose to represent each letter. In Harris's
book, A is for Antlers. They "look like sticks on the heads of deer but
they are really bony growths," we read and learn. On this page–and several
others–Harris includes information that helps readers better understand the
word selected to represent the letter. Bells are significant because
"churches used to ring their big bells on Christmas Day," she writes.
The word for V is Village: "A village is a small group of houses in the
countryside. 'Christmas Villages' are decorations which started off as nativity
scenes but now include many different kinds of ornaments".
It's easy to bemoan how commercialized
Christmas has become, thus it's refreshing to read–on the G page–that "A
gift is something a person gives to someone else without expecting anything in
return." Q is always a challenging letter, and Harris wisely addresses it
with the word Quaint: "Quaint means nice in an old-fashioned way".
And what of Z? "Zzzz is the sound of snoring while asleep. Happy, tired
boys and girls fall asleep quickly after the excitement of Christmas Day."
Indeed they do.
The last page features an image of an
undecorated tree, and here little ones are invited to use their own
imaginations with crayons or markers.
Sharing this book with youngsters will
merrily elucidate some of the symbols and practices surrounding Christmas. It
may even increase excitement for The
Big Day. Enjoy!
THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL
BOOKSTORE OR FROM WWW.SKBOOKS.COM
