Maximilian & the Mystery of the Guardian Angel

Maximilian & the Mystery of the Guardian Angel: A Bilingual Lucha Libre Thriller. Written and illustrated by Xavier Garza; Spanish Translation by Luis Humberto Crosthwaite and Carla Gonzalez Campos; El Paso, TX: Cinco Puntos Press, 2011. Ages 8 - 12.


When I was in junior high I was a professional wrestling FANATIC. I do not use all caps lightly so believe the intensity with which I loved my wrestling. I read the magazines. I watched about nine hours of wrestling every weekend, from the big organizations like the N.W.A. and the WWF to the smaller wrestling organizations based out of Texas and Florida. I even attended a live professional wrestling event where I managed to get the autograph of my very favorite wrestler at the time Kevin Von Erich. Yes, I still have that autographed picture in my possession. But even before that, as a child, I watched movies that featured the masked wrestler known as Mil Mascaras--One Thousand Masks! His movies took place in a world of Mexican villains and heroes, something I didn't see too much of in the American wrestling of my junior high years. 

Imagine my surprise when I first came across the work of Xavier Garza several years ago. His picture book Lucha Libre: The Man in the Silver Mask was not only like a blast from the past, but such a breath of fresh air in the world of children's books. From the red end pages covered in images of masked wrestlers and stars and into the story of a little boy who attends a lucha libre event for the very first time and ends up having an ever bigger adventure than anticipated, Garza managed to create a book for younger readers that is action packed, pitting the good forces of wrestling versus the evil, as well as a colorful feast for the eyes. Who can resist getting caught up in the excitement and cheering on the technicos (good guys)?


Now Garza has done it again. In Maximilian and the Mystery of the Guardian Angel Xavier Garza has created a unique middle grade novel that pays homage to the Mexican tradition of masked wrestlers. Maximilian is a fan of lucha libre and especially of the Mexican luchador known as the Guardian Angel, one of the technicos who fights rudos (bad guys) like Vampire Velasquez and Diablo Rojo. One day he has the good fortune to attend a wrestling event featuring the Guardian Angel in his hometown of San Antonio. Like Carlitos in Lucha Libre, Maximilian unexpectedly finds himself in the middle of real life wrestling drama! 


One of the enduring mysteries of masked wrestlers is, of course, that of identity. Who is it beneath that mask? There is speculation, but not until a face is revealed does one truly know.  There is the neighbor who is convinced that under the Guardian Angel's mask is Pedro Infante, the Mexican singer and actor who died in a plane crash in 1957. But it is Maximilian (or Max, as he prefers to be called) who is about to set his eyes on who lives under those flamboyant masks, to learn family secrets, and in the process, to discover a little more about himself. 


When I think of words that describe this book I see them inside the kind of "bubbles" used to highlight action in comic books:  Exciting! Fun! Suspenseful! Pow! With his illustration style that has a sort of old school comic book aesthetic to it, I could see this as a comic book series and as the type of book that would appeal to readers of action or superhero comics. Garza draws from Mexican culture as well as that of his native San Antonio, like the legend of Donkey Lady Bridge, and weaves these elements into his story and his illustrations. 


The book, as mentioned in the subtitle, is bilingual. Spanish text is laid out parallel to the English. We don't often see middle grade novels that are bilingual and that include male Latino protagonists. Garza and Cinco Puntos Press have really outdone themselves in hitting on all of these areas that are lacking in the world of children's books. Fortunately, the Pura Belpre Award committee thought so too as the book was selected a 2012 author honor book. Here's to more books like this in the near future!

Marisol McDonald Doesn't Match

Marisol McDonald Doesn’t Match / Marisol McDonald No Combina. Written by Monica Brown; Illustrated by Sara Palacios; Spanish Translation by Adriana Dominguez; San Francisco, CA: Children’s Book Press, 2011. Ages 4 - 8

Marisol McDonald doesn’t match! Her clothes don’t match. Her peanut butter and jelly burritos don’t match. And her brown skin and red hair certainly don’t match. Despite the fact that her lack of coordination is repeatedly pointed out to her, Marisol is happy with her mismatched lifestyle. That is, until, a classmate poses the ultimate challenge. Determined to prove that she can match, Marisol spends a day attempting to do so only to find herself miserable. 

In Marisol McDonald Doesn’t Match, Brown and Palacios combine their talents to tell a story that is, on the surface, about a little girl coming to terms with not conforming to expectations. On a deeper level, the book sheds light on the issues of identity and belonging biracial children often struggle with. Brown, the daughter of a Peruvian mother and a North American father who describes herself as a “mestiza Peruvian American of European, Jewish, and Amerindian heritage” draws from her own experiences as a multiracial child to write Marisol’s story.

Palacios’ brightly colored mixed-media illustrations, a combination of mediums that include collage, color pencils, pencil, markers and gouache, complement Brown’s story, but also serve to capture the diversity of Marisol’s world. The signs and notes posted in Marisol’s home and community are in both English and Spanish. Her classmates are white, African-American and Asian. Marisol’s teacher Ms. Apple, who with green eyes and brown skin appears to be biracial as well, is the individual who reaffirms and encourages the little girl to be herself. Palacios, a native of Mexico City, manages to perfectly convey the blandness that can come from trying to fit in with her illustration of Marisol standing in front of her mirror before heading off to school. Dressed from head to toe in orange that matches her hair, Marisol appears washed out, easily blending into the backgrounds of the illustrations that follow her day. 

Like Marisol, the book is also bilingual. The story is written in English with a Spanish translation that equally shares space on the pages. Marisol’s devil-may-care attitude and self-confidence will empower children who do not fit into cookie cutter molds because of their multiracial backgrounds, and will also appeal to any child who is beginning to develop an awareness of societal pressures to fit in. Her combination of dots, stripes and patterned Peruvian chullo hats is only a scratch at the surface of Marisol’s colorful story. While it appears that Marisol doesn’t match she is, in fact, representative of what American society is beginning to resemble. Marisol McDonald Doesn’t Match is a celebration of our increasingly colorful and less homogeneous nation.  

Kirkus Star for "books of remarkable merit"

Junior Library Guild Selection, Fall 2011

El Gallito, the Moya Cigar Box and Me

A few months after my son was born, my dear friend Jenna sent me a book titled The Bossy Gallito / El Gallo de Bodas. Written in both Spanish and English it is Lucia M. Gonzalez's retelling of a traditional Cuban tale about a little glutton of a rooster who dirties his beak on his way to his uncle's wedding and then commands a number of animals and objects to do his bidding so that he can make it to the wedding on time.

It's a fun tale to read, especially in Spanish because of the tongue twisting and multiple meanings of the words:

El gallito se detuvo y penso:

--Pico o no pico?

Si pico me ensucio el pico

y no podre ir a la boda

de mi tio Perico.

Sin pensarlo dos veces

pico y se ensucio el pico.

I used to read this to E when he was a baby, and then it was tucked away in his bookshelf until this past weekend when I pulled it out and read it to him again. He likes it a lot, and I've been reading it to him everyday since. Sometimes just in English or just in Spanish, and sometimes in both languages.

While I like the tale, it's the illustrations that truly bring me joy. I am in love with those illustrations by Lulu Delacre because they all picture the gallito walking down the streets of Little Havana in Miami (the artist based her illustrations on hundred of photos she took in Little Havana). All the rich details make my heart swell as I think of my childhood home--the little cafetera on the title page; the birds playing dominoes in the park (my father played dominoes in the park every weekend); the cases of pasteles; the steam rising from the flamingo's coffee cup as he stands at the counter of a cafeteria; the palm trees and shopping carts full of coconuts; the Goya can tied to the back of the wedding party's car. Oh, but the one that gets to me most is the one of the cigar boxes and packages in the display case of a cafeteria counter. There I see the package for Padron, the brand my dad smoked (Padron numero 4), and the Moya cigar boxes.

Shortly before I left home for college (to a small town a six hour drive north of Miami) my glasses broke. I arrived at college with broken glasses. They were hideous enough without the addition of the tape holding them together so that my blind-as-a-bat self could function until my new pair arrived. When my dad sent my new pair of glasses, they arrived in my dorm mailbox tucked inside a Moya cigar box. I have held onto this box for almost twenty years. In it are random little keepsakes: graduation tassles; old family photos; the hospital identification bracelet from when I was born; my high school class ring; a bottle of silvery blue nail polish I wore on my wedding day (my something blue); and my father's obituary.