Teresa's Journey - Josephine and Jo Harper

Teresa's Journey.

By Josephine Harper and Jo Harper. Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2006. viii, 162 pages. 28 illustrations, ISBN 089672591X $17.95 paper. Includes a “Pronunciation Guide to Nahuatl (Aztec) Words,” chapter notes to elucidate cultural points, and a bibliography. For young adults. http://www.ttup.ttu.edu/

Maybe you met Delfino in the earlier novel, Delfino’s Journey. Teresa is Delfino’s sister, and she must reunite with the earlier immigrants to the U.S. Teresa is now a 19-year-old widowed mother on a journey from “a safe nest,” a mountain paradise outside Mexico City through Texas to Houston. Their journey is hard. First there’s the erupting volcano, then there’s the strange fortune teller who tells her when danger comes to “Follow the caged quetzal,” and then there’s a menacing, murdering gang. She makes friends along the way. Family reunion follows, but then little Antonio is kidnapped. Full of action and character development models.

Both Josephine and Jo have written good books before, Prairie Dog Pioneers by Josephine and Olly Jolly, Rodeo Clown by the duo. - WH

Child of Many Rivers - Lucy Fischer-West

Child of Many Rivers:

Journeys to and from the Rio Grande.

By Lucy Fischer-West, Foreword by Denise Chavez . Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2005. xvi, 190 pages. 32 b/w photos, index. ISBN 0896725561. $21.95 cloth http://www.ttup.ttu.edu/

This Child won the 2005 Southwest Book Award and was a 2006 WILLA Literary Award Finalist. Lucy Fischer-West teaches English at El Paso’s Cathedral High School, and her students are lucky that she does. You are lucky if you read the volume. It started with contributions on her father and mother to the Texas Folklore Society. In the “Epilogue” she summarizes that “Rivers for me are a continuum, linking not only each other but also past and present and most importantly all the people who belong to them and have touched my life.”
Her father was a German sailor, her mother was the “youngest and most beautiful girl in a family of twelve” in Camargo, Chihuahua. As young girl, Lucy patted tortilla balls beside the Conchos River, and as a mature woman she washed her hands in the Ganges and received a blessing from Sister Teresa. Her autobiographical essays lure the reader through the gifts of cultures. Whether she’s sharing the aroma of the El Paso market, the horrible auto accident near the River Clyde, French rocks with Paulette, touring India and Nepal on the Rotary trip “to improve international understanding,” Lucy’s waters mingle in a beautiful human stream.

For adults but could be useful in considering some students' family experiences. Un millon de gracias, Lucy. - WH