Michael Sedano
My granddaughter read Maus in high school. A graphic novel in a high-level English class perplexed me. Back in my youth, Classics Illustrated was the epitome of "funny books." Comic books featured heroes, cute characters, animated icons. Classics Illustrated broke down the essence of a work like Romeo and Juliet and turned it into a comic book whose twenty-five cent price put them out of reach.
Graphic novels are a different experience.
I've now read my first graphic novel. Poet Carmen Tafolla, working with illustrator Thelma Ortiz Muraida, adapted a San Antonio legend and packaged it for older children, the story of a woman burned to death by covetous men.
Donkey Lady has a rough edge to it. That's the name given to a quiet woman's spirit. In life her neighbors called La Callada after her characteristic silence. She grows the best produce around and when the grocer displays La Callada's tomatoes and vegetables, customers snap them up.
La Callada's horticultural technique is not just owning good tierra but having good relations with the garden. The woman lives close to nature and such harmony yields outstanding produce and jealousy. Jealous men want the woman's land and take lethal action to drive La Callada off her land.
She is a woman of her land, and defies the nighttime raiders with a refrain, "no sir! this is mine and here I'll stay where the trees and the birds and the wind know my name." She remains and the marauders burn her home with La Callada inside.
This is seriously violent stuff. With illustrations. And it's a true story, 100 years old. Kids deserve to learn this history and its lessons.
The authors, recognizing a possible confusion between an illustrated children's picture book and this tale, open the book with a page of warning. "This is a graphic novel for adults and children over nine." Warning notwithstanding, there's a page of discussion questions on the last page.
Kids in classrooms and book groups will enjoy delving into the deeply serious issues Tafolla raises. Gente familiar with this SanAnto story will note Tafolla's fleshed out the attackers, adding a decent woman--the wife of the main attacker--and brings that man to a just fate.
Donkey Lady, as a parable, offers a host of discussion points that could be lessons about resistance, racists, ignorance, being different/individualistic, and most of all, the spirit world.
The Donkey Lady's provenance as cultural knowledge particular to San Antonio has a fit emergence into the outside world through one of the United States' best small presses, Aztlán Libre Press (link). La Bloga welcomes work from this publisher, such as J Lo's Nalgas (link), and a granddaughter's poetry tribute to her abuelo (link). its Aztec calendar coloring book, Alurista's Tuna Luna. Readers can order The Donkey Lady from the publisher. Reliable indie booksellers like Libromobile can order your copies.
