Our Lady of Guadalupe

Gr 1–4—Bernier-Grand does a credible job of retelling the story of the miraculous appearance of Mary to a humble Mexican farmer; the proof of his vision is an indelible image of her on his cloak. Engle's oil and encaustic (hot wax and pigments) paintings use muddy colors to evoke place and time, and heavy-handed visual metaphors (like birds and musical notes on wispy swirls of cloud). Some of the pictures are awkward or ill-placed. For example, a spread features an illustration of Juan Diego's dying uncle with unrelated text on the left side, and readers don't learn of his illness until they get to the bottom of the recto. When the image of our Lady is dramatically revealed, it is not the focal point of the spread; the long ornate cloak of the bishop is seen first, and the eyes of the bishop and priests are focused on the flowers that tumble from the robe rather than the real miracle, the painted image of the Virgin on the tilma of the farmer. This title won't replace Tomie dePaola's classic retelling in The Lady of Guadalupe (Holiday House, 1980), though it is shorter and will be easier for reading aloud.—Lisa Egly Lehmuller, St. Patrick's Catholic School, Charlotte, NC