Sunday, March 9, 2008
Tales from Silver Lands
This is an old Newbery, a book I approached with great trepidation. I soon found my trepidation unjustified, for this is a timeless book of old stories from Central and South America, none of which I’d ever read or heard before. All the themes of folk tales are here: the value of courage, the triumph of virtue, the dangers of power and wealth. Though the themes were often the same of other stories I’ve read, the stories felt fresh, peopled with small tribes living in the forest or “warm lands where spice-laden breezes blow gently soft,” stories filled with llamas and humming-birds and huanacos and calabashes.
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I feel that Tales From Sliver Lands has gotten a bad rap. I enjoyed reading this book very much. I will tell you why, I am a fan of Mayan folklore and three of these stories are about the Hero Twins, Hunapu and Xbalanque. They are the main characters in part of the Popol Vuh which is like the Bible to the Mayan. If you read these stories with this in mind and know a little about Mayan culture and folklore it makes them much more fun. Stories 8,9and 19 are the ones I am talking about.
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