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When Tzunún was little, her mother nicknamed her Colibrí, Spanish for “hummingbird.” At age four, Colibrí is kidnapped from her parents in Guatemala City and ever since she’s traveled with Uncle, the ex-soldier and wandering beggar, who renamed her Rosa. Uncle told Rosa that he looked for her parents, but never found them.
When Tzunún was little, her mother nicknamed her Colibrí, Spanish for “hummingbird.” At age four, Colibrí is kidnapped from her parents in Guatemala City and ever since she’s traveled with Uncle, the ex-soldier and wandering beggar, who renamed her Rosa. Uncle told Rosa that he looked for her parents, but never found them.
Due to publisher restrictions the library cannot purchase additional copies of this title, and we apologize if there is a long waiting list. Be sure to check for other copies, because there may be other editions available.
Due to publisher restrictions the library cannot purchase additional copies of this title, and we apologize if there is a long waiting list. Be sure to check for other copies, because there may be other editions available.
1The ValleyMoss and bright grasses glistened around the spring. The earth smelled as if it were singing.I scooped up water in my hands and drank.We ate our last pieces of dry bread. I shook the crumbs out of my shawl, folded it into a square, and put it on my head to shade my eyes."Let's go, Rosa," Uncle said.He always called me Rosa. My real name, Tzunœn, was a secret I had almost forgotten.The road was narrow. We walked on, Uncle carrying our belongings on his back in the black suitcase with the broken zipper. So nothing would fall out, he'd stuffed the suitcase inside a rope bag with a carrying strap. The leather strap went around his forehead and left a mark there.We were in the Ixil Valley, in the high mountains of Guatemala where it rains a lot and sometimes there's frost in the winter. Beside us was a forest of tall pines with flowers in the sunlit spaces—tiny star-shaped red ones, shaggy purple ones with rough raggedy leaves, and seven-foot-tall yellow daisies. The daisies were my favorite, the way they bent their heads and seemed to smile at me.There were rocks all around, too—enormous boulders that had tumbled down the mountains in ancient times and got to flatter land and just hit a place where they stuck.Pinecone seeds sprouted on top of boulders, driving their roots into the rock. They'd cracked some boulders wide open.The seeds in pinecones are lighter than a grain of sand. Sometimes I'd held them in my hand and blown them away, as if they were fine grains of dust. Yet they had the power deep inside them to split rock. Power silent and invisible, but real as the mountains. What was it? Where did it come from?I wanted to ask Uncle, but I didn't. He disliked questions. Sometimes for whole days he hardly talked.Uncle said he was a ladino. That is, he claimed he had some Spanish ancestors way back, as well as Mayan ones—and he said that made him moody and gave him a blood disease. He said his Spanish blood hated his Mayan blood, and his Mayan blood hated his Spanish blood, and they were together in him fighting all the time.I didn't see how that could be. Blood is blood.We walked along by pastures where sheep were grazing—white ones and black ones, grown ones and little lambs just learning to walk. I thought they were sweet, but I kept that to myself. Uncle called the people he didn't like—which was most people—"stinking sheep." I figured that meant he didn't like sheep.Behind us a pickup tore up the road, the grinding of its motor eating the stillness of the forest. We moved out of the way and it rocked along beside us, drowning the smell of grass and pines in smoke. The driver glanced at us, slowing down to see if we wanted a ride. A lot of passengers were already in the back, holding on tight to an iron frame welded to the pickup bed, but there would have been room for us.Uncle waved the driver on.That was one of the hard parts of being with Uncle. I could never tell what he would do. Often he would accept a ride, and at the end, when the driver was collecting money from everybody, he would try to sneak away without paying. Other times, even if he had money, he'd turn a ride down and just keep walking as if he could walk to the end of the world.He was a fast walker. When I was little and couldn't keep up, he used to get mad and say he would give me away.My sandals were tight and hurt my feet. I was growing fast. Too fast, Uncle said.I didn't know exactly how old I was, because I had lost track. Uncle figured I was twelve.We kept walking, and pretty soon we were standing on a ridge, looking down into a valley where a town was spread out like the flat bottom of a bowl. We could see tile and tin roofs of houses, and a big white church in the...
About the Author-
ANN CAMERON is the author of fifteen books, including The Stories Julian Tells, a JLG selections, and The Secret Life of Amanda K. Woods, a National Book Award finalist. She grew up in a small town on a lake in northern Wisconsin—Rice Lake. she's lived for the past twenty years in a small town on a lake in the Guatemalan highlands. To write Colibrí, she traveled to many places in Guatemala where the book is set, crawled around in dark caves, including one where a real Mayan treasure had been found, and consulted Mayan calender diviners.
Reviews-
For almost as long as she can remember, Rosa, as she has come to be called, has been traveling with the man she calls "Uncle." As they journey from one Guatemalan town to another and scrimp out a living through trickery, the real story of this fine young girl unfolds. Rosa has a core of strength that buoys her as she listens to the Day-Keeper, who foretells the good fortune that Rosa will bring to Se–or Om but also warns of the dangers ahead. As Ann Cameron brings her listener close to Rosa's intimate feelings, she also details everyday life in Guatemala as seen through Rosa's eyes--from bus travel to jacaranda trees to sandal styles to the serenity of the onion-picking family--and provides a window on Rosa's reactions. The delicate and firm presentation of Jacqueline Kim adds to the closeness. Her empathy for Rosa as she fights for her life is clear--there is little distance between narrator and heroine. This is a powerful recording. A.R. (c) AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine
Starred review from July 21, 2003 Achieving an almost hypnotic intensity, this taut novel invites readers to sample both savory and bitter flavors of Guatemalan culture as Cameron (The Secret Life of Amanda K. Woods) creates a melting pot of mixed values, religions and races, where both the pure and not-so-pure of heart have faith in a spirit world. The narrator, a 12-year-old girl, navigates an uncertain, mysterious world; in bits and pieces, the author reveals that Tzunún (Mayan for "hummingbird," which is colibrí in Spanish) was kidnapped at age four, while her family was visiting Guatemala City. In the intervening eight years, Tzunún has wandered from village to village with the man she knows only as "Uncle." Most of her early childhood has slipped from her memory, but she does remember that the "first job" her mother gave her was "to be honest." Cameron's understated prose eloquently expresses the complex, interdependent relationship between Tzunún and her kidnapper, who remain linked even though they feel little affection for each other. Tzunún does not leave Uncle because she is afraid of being alone, and Uncle keeps close watch over Tzunún because a fortuneteller predicted that she will lead him to treasure some day. Tension mounts as Tzunún is pressured to lie, cheat and eventually steal for Uncle. In the end, her strong morality is both a saving grace and a threat to her survival, freeing her from Uncle but putting her in danger of his vengeance. Tzunún's struggle to stay true to herself is moving and suspenseful. If the protagonist's final destiny feels somewhat contrived, her growth is convincing nonetheless. Ages 10-up.
April 1, 2005 PreS-Gr K -Daffy Dave, aka Dave Mampel, presents nine stories and four lullabies on this collection. The stories rely far too much on rhyme at the expense of plot or sense, and the narrator's slow, saccharine delivery ensures that the recording will hold little appeal for children above preschool level. Some of the stories have potential -in "Francesca Falls Asleep," Dad's mention of "Plan C" for getting his daughter to sleep inspires more thought, wonder, and sleepiness than all the glasses of warm milk in the world, and "Larry Lemon's Strange Dream" is a modern take on the story of the lion and the mouse that features a little boy getting trapped in a cage made of dinosaur bones -but even these are marred by tedious delivery and stilted rhyme. Daffy Dave's sidekick, cowboy "Dusty Buckles," livens things up a bit in the narrative segments, but the real treasures here are the four somnolent lullabies, particularly the lovely instrumental, "Dusty's Lullaby," that serves as the album's finale. Overall, however, this collection will put listeners to sleep, but for all the wrong reasons. -"Kathleen Kelly MacMillan, Maryland School for the Deaf, Columbia"
Copyright 2005 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
November 1, 2004 Tzunun Chumil, around twelve years old, barely remembers her parents but knows their nickname for her: Colibri. Tzunun's fortunes are tethered to an itinerant ex-soldier who kidnapped her when she was four and has since forced her into a life of begging and petty thievery. Narrator Kim perfectly captures the timbre of a pre-adolescent girl's voice, and her pronunciation of Spanish phrases and Guatemalan place names is effortlessly lilting. She shifts easily among the other players in this tense drama: brutal "Uncle," his sleazy partner Raimundo, and the kind visionary Dona Celestina. Moving carefully from flat hopelessness to timorous determination to fiery rage, Kim, in the persona of Tzunun, gives us a clear portrait of a child gradually gathering the strength to take her destiny into her own hands.
(Copyright 2004 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)
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For almost as long as she can remember, Rosa, as she has come to be called, has been traveling with the man she calls "Uncle." As they journey from one Guatemalan town to another and scrimp out a living through trickery, the real story of this fine young girl unfolds. Rosa has a core of strength that buoys her as she listens to the Day-Keeper, who foretells the good fortune that Rosa will bring to Se–or Om but also warns of the dangers ahead. As Ann Cameron brings her listener close to Rosa's intimate feelings, she also details everyday life in Guatemala as seen through Rosa's eyes--from bus travel to jacaranda trees to sandal styles to the serenity of the onion-picking family--and provides a window on Rosa's reactions. The delicate and firm presentation of Jacqueline Kim adds to the closeness. Her empathy for Rosa as she fights for her life is clear--there is little distance between narrator and heroine. This is a powerful recording. A.R. (c) AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine
