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Chicano author, illustrator collaborate on animal adventure
By MORGAN LEE, Associ- ated Press
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — The 81-year-old author is often called a
dean of Chicano literature. The illustrator is a younger muralist steeped in the visual traditions of Mexican-Amer- ican pop culture and low-rid- er cars.
Together, novelist Rudolfo
Anaya and painter Moises
Salcedo — who goes by El
Moises — have created a
bilingual children’s book with
parallel texts in Spanish and
English about the adventures
of a tiny owl named Ollie
who longs to read on his
own, even as he skips school
and tangles with a cast of
conniving animal characters in the hills and skies of northern New Mexico.
Anaya achieved lasting literary fame with the novel “Bless Me, Ultima” in 1972 about a boy’s coming of age in post-World War II New Mexico under the guidance of a traditional spiritual healer. The book became a movie — and recently an opera.
The new children’s book from the Muse- um of New Mexico Press— titled “Owl in a Straw Hat,” or “El Tecolote del Sombrero de Paja” — is chocked full of references
to northern New Mexico geography and homespun Hispanic tradition — from posole soup and pinon nuts to the “ace- quia” organizations that help irrigate fields and lend a special order to local rural life.
Anaya said the work is a heartfelt effort to encourage shared family reading in English or Spanish, with eye-grabbing imagery.
The book’s illustrations spring from the brush of Mexican-born, Arizona-raised El
Moises — who made New Mexico his ad- opted home nearly a decade ago. His other recent commissions include urban murals, a tequila logo, CD covers and more.
The 45-year-old illustrator is a father of five who often paints at a weathered liv- ing-room table amid the bustle of family. El Moises says people call him a Chicano artist, but it’s really just his take on every- day life.
“Bold and bright has always been my thing,” he said. “I love low-riders because I grew up around them. ... I just think that I’m an artist who is narrating his life.”
One of the new book’s characters — a hungry and untrustworthy wolf in sun- glasses named Luis Lobo — is adapted from a self-designed tattoo on the artist’s upper arm. Other characters include a young raven and crow who prefer video games to school. There are positive role models, too — a disciplined roadrunner who drives a dazzling low-rider car and a
loving grandmother “Nana” owl.
El Moises and Anaya already are working on a sequel that explores concerns about childhood bullying — something the illustrator and a 13-year-old son have been grappling with recently in Albuquerque, culminating
in the decision to do home schooling.
Anaya, a widower who lives in Albuquerque with
a dachshund at his side, continues to work steadily on essays and novels for grown- up readers.
He said “Owl in a Straw Hat” is an outgrowth of his enduring concern for chil- dren — including children
living far away in war-torn countries. “Maybe that’s why I write books for chil-
dren, to get a lift, to think there is some- thing positive on Earth that might offset the evil that we see,” Anaya said, on a day where violence in Syria dominated news headlines. “As I’m writing, I’m speaking to a child, to children. I’m kind of telling them, ‘Look at Oli and Raven and Crow.’ The children are always there, they’re always there wanting to hear a story.”
The English text of the new book con- tains a smattering of colloquial Spanish words and phrases — such as “mi’jito” for my little son. A Spanish-English glossa- ry at the back of the book resolves any mysteries.
That aims to help young readers from various cultures feel comfortable, accord- ing to Enrique Lamadrid, who wrote the book’s full Spanish translation.
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