Secret of the Andes

Secret of the Andes, by Ann Nolan Clark, is a short and rather heavy-handedly poetic story about a boy named Cusi, who lives in an isolated mountain valley, tending a flock of llamas with an older man. The story follows Cusi as he learns about life outside the valley and subsequently discovers why he lives there alone with Chuto.

So - a few things I liked about Secret of the Andes. It's relatively short, and I did like Clark's language sometimes, especially when she describes sunrise and spirituality in the mountains:

The morning was cold with the coldness of before dawn. It was gray with the grayness of before dawn. It felt unfriendly because the world had not yet wakened to make it happy with living things.

Chuto was a dark shadow moving the gray shadows. Cusi followed him swiftly lest he become lost in the earth clouds that billowed around them (p. 19).

Earth clouds! What a great description of fog.

Then the sun came. Chuto's voice rose to meet the sun, and Cusi knew forever the joy of welcoming the coming of the Great Father who lightened and warmed the world.

After the call was finished Chuto stood for a minute with head bowed, lost in thinking. For a brief time he had touched the Spirit World, and he hated to return to the realness of living. But it was only for a moment. With a sigh the old man raised his head, straightened his thin shoulders, and turned to the homeward trail (p. 36).

Furthermore, I have a fondness for descriptions of food in books (what can I say? I studied ethnobotany for several years), and I really enjoyed the parts about traditional Andean coca use, the frozen (actually freeze-dried) potatoes that Cusi grinds up, chicha (Clark missed a wonderful chance to describe how it's made with saliva), and the obscure grains - canihua (which is related to the better known quinoa) and "pigweed" (which may be amaranth [kawicha], or canihua or quinoa) - and of course the "guinea pigs and sweet potatoes" that Cusi eats a couple of times.

I didn't like the rather plodding plot of Secret of the Andes as much. I didn't care much about the heavily foreshadowed secret, and the emphasis on pure, royal Inca blood annoyed me - not to mention that these elements precluded any kind of normal family life for Cusi (one of the major sources of conflict in the story). The characters were all rather stoic and flat, and I didn't appreciate the pseudo-profound statements about following your heart, not grieving if your searching circles (no, I didn't mean you're, it's about searching in circles), and the like. I did rather enjoy Cusi's quasi-mystical relationship with the llamas, though I got a little tired of hearing how haughty and graceful they were.

In a lot of ways, Cusi's story reminded me of ...And Now, Miguel, which won the Newbery the following year (1954) - both are slow (if not ponderous), thoughtful stories about a boy's coming of age, with a lot of ethnographic detail. Is it possible that a lot of the same committee members were still there a year later?

When I went looking for the cover of the 1963 edition that I have checked out of my library, I couldn't find it online. So above you see a photo that I took (hopefully my local librarians won't hunt me down for putting the open book face down to get a shot of the wrap-around effect of the dust jacket).

Although I'm not a huge fan of illustrator Jean Charlot (and he illustrated ....And Now, Miguel, too! how interesting), I think his cover and the endpapers (seen here in a photo taken from Peter D. Sieruta's wonderful post on Secret of the Andes) fit the book very well. Much better than the modern adaptations. Why the heck do publishers keep slapping new cover illustrations on these classics?


Peter D. Sieruta's post also led me to an absorbing online discussion of The Secret of the Andes at the Heavy Medal blog, and how Secret compares to the Newbery Honors books of 1953 - especially Charlotte's Web, by E.B. White. I don't think anyone can deny that Charlotte's Web is the more widely read and loved book today. But is Secret of the Andes actually a better book? Be sure and read the comments, they're quite enlightening.

Secret of the Andes - Part I (should Charlotte's Web have won?)
Part II (or why some people do like Secret of the Andes)
Part III (why some people think Secret won)

Secret of the Andes

Secret of the Andes is a quiet story of an Inca boy growing up in the mountains of Peru, raising llamas. This boy, Cusi, knows little of his past, and has no home other than the mountains, no family outside his elderly mentor and his llamas.

Time passes and Cusi knows he must leave the mountain, leave his llamas, leave his mentor, and go to the city to seek out his heart’s desire. Will he find this heart’s desire? And, if he does, will it be what he thought it would be? A wonderful little story of the seeking and finding of simple happiness in a big world.

Secret of the Andes (1953)

Cusi, a precocious child of the ancient Inca culture, had a strange upbringing. His guardian, an old man named Chuto, was a llama herder living in the Andes mountain range near Cuzco, Peru. At the beginning of the novel Cusi has no memory of ever seeing anyone except Chuto, so when an Incan family moves into the valley below, Cusi is fascinated. He spends a lot of time watching them, wishing he had a family of his own. He has no idea who his parents were, or how he came to be living with Chuto. There are too many mysteries in Cusi's life, and he's desperately in search of answers. During the course of this unusual coming-of-age novel Cusi meets many other people and makes two trips off the mountain to visit the civilization below.

From the quality of the writing it was clear to me that the author, Ann Nolan Clark, was intimately familiar with Incan and Peruvian cultures. I did some research to see if she'd been to Peru. Sure enough, she had.

Ann Nolan Clark spent twenty-five years teaching school – most of that time at the New Mexico Tesuque school for Native American children. During her teaching career she wrote fifteen children's books that were published by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

As Longfellow wrote, “Into each life some rain must fall.”

Tragedy hit Ann Nolan Clark's life when her only child, a son, was killed during World War II. After the war the Institute for Inter-American Affairs funded this author's travels in Central and South America. For five years she journeyed through Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Peru, and Brazil. Her travels inspired more novels for children, one of which was Secret of the Andes. This novel was published in 1952 and won the Newbery Medal for 1953.

For the most part, I enjoyed reading the book. There were no glaring grammatical flaws that interfered with my reading, and the words flowed well, which is the mark of an experienced writer. However there were a few passages that went into travelogue mode, and that brought me out of the novel experience long enough to be sorry the author had not edited them out. After this happened several times, I took note of this passage to share with you:

“Chuto brought the yarn he had carried down the mountain to barter. While they ate parched corn and dried meat, Chuto bargained. The other men examined the yarn, noting its quality and the evenness of its spinning. ‘The women of your village spin good yarn,’ one man told him. Chuto did not answer. He did not say there were no women in his village. He did not say that he had spun the yarn and under his patient teaching Cusi had spun some of it. Although spinning is chiefly women’s work, men and boys know how to spin. Occasionally they can be seen spinning yarn as they walk along the highland trails.” - pg. 46

This is a great scene until the last two sentences when the author stepped out of the character's point of view and started explaining the culture.

In the second half of the book I noticed other things that bothered me even more. I don't want to write any spoilers, so I can't tell everything I had trouble believing. In her effort to teach about the mysterious Incan culture, the author gave the Incas the ability to know and do things in super-human, mysterious ways. These unrealistic plot twists didn't go over well with me, but even worse were the psychic powers given to Misti, Cusi's favorite llama. Misti gained the power to lead Cusi on incredible journeys. I would rather have seen Cusi figure out things on his own.

For me, the most annoying thing in the book had to do with a landslide. This landslide was totally unnecessary to the plot of the book. There I was, enjoying a pleasant evening with a children's novel when suddenly I'm informed of a landslide that takes a heart-rending toll in human life. My heart starts aching, but to my surprise, Cusi doesn't react much. I don't have too much tolerance for tragedy and trauma in children's literature so I found that totally unnecessary landslide to be superfluous to the plot of the novel, and therefore, annoying.

Ann Nolan Clark came through for her readers in the end. She complimented her lovely descriptions of Peruvian landscape with a final chapter that satisfied me 100%. By the time I got done reading, I was excited about knowing what the secret of the Andes was.

It seems that a lot of Newbery Medal winners are chosen because they illuminate various world or historic cultures. This book is an excellent introduction to Andean culture for young readers. I was surprised, however, at the frequent mention of Coca leaf use by Cusi and his guardian, Chuto. I always considered Coca leaves to be the natural form of cocaine. I did some research on this and discovered that Coca leaves are for sale on the internet, and it is not illegal for Americans to buy them. Coca leaf tea is said to energize, brighten moods, help digestion, regulate the metabolism of carbohydrates, and alleviate fatigue and altitude sickness. It is an important part of Incan culture that Ann Nolan Clark wanted people to know about.

There were other parts of the book I liked, for example, the relationship of the humans and llamas, a scary bridge scene, and Chuto's early morning greeting to the sun. I could go on telling you more, but perhaps I've said enough and you will soon read and enjoy this short novel for yourself.

My book review blog: Linda Jo Martin.
My children's literature blog: Literature For Kids.