Series:

Paso Por Aqui Series on the Nuevomexicano Literary Heritage

2 total works

Cover of Amadito and the Hero Children

Recent health scares such as H1N1 influenza have exposed children to frightening information that can be difficult to process. This thoughtful bilingual book helps them understand the abstract concept of largescale sickness and appreciate the role children play in the health of their community. It introduces young readers to a fascinating aspect of southwest history, and invites discussion of folk medicine and science, while also addressing children's curiosities and fears.

Recounting the two most deadly epidemics to strike the Southwest--smallpox in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and influenza during World War I--this beautifully illustrated narrative reveals that with tragedy comes heroism, as demonstrated by the children who bravely transported the smallpox vaccine from Mexico's interior to New Mexico in 1805. Through the eyes of the protagonist Jose Amado ""Amadito"" Dominguez--a real child of the flu epidemic era who would later become Taos County's first nuevomexicano physician--folklorist Lamadrid weaves together culture, history, mortality, and hope into a life-affirming lesson.

Cover of Juan the Bear and the Water of Life
La Acequia del Rito y la Sierra in the Mora Valley is the highest and most famous traditional irrigation system in New Mexico. It carries water up and over a mountain ridge and across a sub-continental divide, from the tributaries of the Rio Grande to the immense watershed of the Mora, Canadian, Arkansas, and Mississippi Rivers. The names and stories of those who created this acequia to sustain their communities have mostly been lost and replaced by myths and legends. Now, when children ask, some parents attribute the task of moving mountains and changing the course of rivers to Juan del Oso, the stouthearted man whose father was a bear.From the mountains of northern Spain to the Andes in South America, Spanish-speaking people have told ancient legends of Juan del Oso and his friends. In this children's tale, agriculturalist Juan Estevan Arellano and folklorist Enrique Lamadrid share a unique version of a celebrated story that has been told in northern New Mexico for centuries.