Award-winning author-illustrator Duncan Tonatiuh sheds light on the
significance of Aztec manuscripts and culture
A 2023 Pura Belpré Youth Illustration Honor Book
Our world, little brother, is an amoxtlalpan, a land of books.
In the jungles where the jaguar dwells, the Mayas make books.
In the mountains the cloud people, the Mixtecs, make them as well. So
do others in the coast and in the forests.
And we the Mexica of the mighty Aztec empire, who dwell in the valley
of the volcanoes, make them too.
A young Aztec girl tells her little brother how their parents create
beautiful painted manuscripts, or codices. She explains to him how paper
is made from local plants and how the long paper is folded into a book.
Her parents and others paint the codices to tell the story of their
people's way of life, documenting their history, science, tributes, and
sacred rituals.
Duncan Tonatiuh's lyrical prose and beloved illustration style, inspired
by the pre-Columbian codices, tell the story of how--contrary to the
historical narrative that European colonizers bestowed "civilization"
and knowledge to the Americas--the Aztec and their neighbors in the
Valley of Mexico painted books and records long before Columbus arrived,
and continued doing so among their Nahua-speaking descendants for
generations after the Spanish Conquest. From an award-winning
author-illustrator, A Land of Books pays tribute to Mesoamerican
ingenuity and celebrates the universal power of books.
