Beneath the Stone: A Mexican Zapotec Tale

by Bernard Wolf

Book Overview

The customs and daily life of the small village of Oaxaca, Mexico, are shown through the eyes of a six-year-old Zapotec Indian boy. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0531068358
• ISBN13: 9780531068359
• Release Date: January 1994
• Publisher: Orchard Books (NY)
• Length: 48 Pages
• Weight: 1.12 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 10.7" x 8.3"
• Age Range: 4 to 8 years
• Grade Range: Preschool to Grade 3

Customer Reviews

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First hand account of the book's family

This is a book geared toward the young reader, but anyone with an interest in the Zapotec weavings and culture will find it a heartwarming and quick read. While visiting Oaxaca over Christmas I had the priviledge to meet Antoinetta in her kiosk at the Zocolo. This gracious lady introduced me to the book as well as to the beautiful works of her family.

Last winter in Oaxaca I met a woman in the market place...

"El libro, muestra el libro" said Senora Galan in the simple room of their home as we sipped hot chocolate against the chilly night air. Leo ran off and returned with a picture book which he presented to me, and returned to his mothers side to watch as I read. The book of course was Beneath the Stone: A Mexican Zapotec Tale, written about Leo and his family by Bernard Wolf. I met Leo's mother in the marketplace in Oaxaca. She was standing in front of a table covered with beautiful woven rugs and wall hangings. When I admired her rugs and heard about the way she and her family weave them, in the same way their family has done for centuries, I was fascinated. The weavings on the wool rugs made intricate patterns, mostly traditional designs, Senora Galan told me, and are passed down family to family. The dies they use are from the plants around them, boiled for days in a tub in the bare yard of their home. We spoke for a while, and when Senora Galan discovered that I was a young woman traveling alone, she insisted that I stay with her family that night in Teotitlan de Valle, a short way from Oaxaca city. Feeling a bit lonely, I accepted, and was welcomed by the Galan family to their simple home. Mr. Wolf's book, which I read in the room were he took many of the photos, beautifully describes the desolate beauty of Teotitlan and the warmth and kindness of the people to whom this land is home. Leo proudly watched as I read about him, following along the path of his day with the picture book. Leo, like the rest of his family, helps weave the rugs in the winter time, when the farm work is done. Beneath the Stone, details the steps involved in making the rugs, closely following the work from raw wool through dying and weaving until the finished products are stacked in a special room to await market day. Mr. Wolf very accurately captures the feel of Teotitlan and the lives of its Zapotec inhabitants. His book details the lives of this family so well that Senora Galan was worried that perhaps too much was revealed about her family's trade secrets. She also seemed sad to not have heard from Mr. Wolf since he left their home to complete the book in New York. In an increasingly homogenous world, surviving traditional cultures like the Zapotec become more fascinating to the world. I recommed Beneath the Stone for children, because of its clear vision of another child's very different life, but I would hope parents would include with it a lesson on the dangers of exploitation.