Rigoberta Menchú: Books for Children and Teens

Courageous History Makers: 11 Women from Latin America Who Changed the World highlights 11 women from Latin America who excelled in science, sports, the arts, journalism, politics and more. Some notable women featured include Mexican painter Frida Khalo, Nobel Peace Prize Winner Rigoberta Menchú, Grammy-winning musical icon Celia Cruz, and renowned pilot Hermelinda Urvina. By presenting the true biographical stories of these outstanding women in rhyming verses, young readers will follow their journey to success.

The second installment of the life of the Nobel Peace prize-winning activist, Rigoberta Menchú picks up her story where the first volume left off. In 1981, she fled from Guatemala to Mexico City, deeply traumatized by the violence against her family and community. She resolved to dedicate her life to the Indian cause and painstakingly built a solidarity movement with the Indians living as outlaws in Guatemala’s mountains. In 1988 she returned to Guatemala as a representative of the opposition in exile.

Now a global bestseller, the remarkable life of Rigoberta Menchú, a Guatemalan peasant woman, reflects on the experiences common to many Indian communities in Latin America. Menchú suffered gross injustice and hardship in her early life: her brother, father and mother were murdered by the Guatemalan military. She learned Spanish and turned to catechistic work as an expression of political revolt as well as religious commitment. Menchú vividly conveys the traditional beliefs of her community and her personal response to feminist and socialist ideas.

Before the thirty-six-year war in Guatemala, despite the hardships the Maya people had endured since the time of the Conquest, life in their highland villages had a beauty and integrity that were changed forever by the conflict and brutal genocide that were to come. Through stories of her grandparents and parents and of the natural world, and her retellings of the stories that she was told as a young girl, Rigoberta Menchú presents a rich, humorous and engaging picture of that lost world.