HispanicVista Columnists

Scholastic Book Titled "Angry Aztecs" Making Some Latinos Angry
By Marisa Trevino,
October 10, 2006
The children's book publisher Scholastic Inc. is home to such favorite characters as Clifford the Big Red Dog, Harry Potter, The Magic School Bus and Maya and Miguel.

Their tagline is: Helping Children Around the World Read and Learn

And they do that beautifully with engaging stories, challenging puzzles and sensitivity to different cultures.

So why would a company that has based itself as the premier ambassador of children's stories worldwide release a title called Angry Aztecs?

The book is part of a series known as the Horrible Histories.

With such titles in the series as the "Ruthless Romans," "The Awful Egyptians," and "The Vicious Vikings," it's easy to see that the series is supposed to be a fun way for kids to learn the history that is not so nice.

But no history is nice and everything has its own spin on it, but to depict the Aztecs in all their bloody gory (and even on the book's cover) and basically make fun of the culture goes a step beyond good humor.

In a paragraph promoting the book, Scholastic writes:

Find out about powerful priests, weird warriors, and the cunning Conquistadors, in this book which provides the foulest facts about Motecuhzoma, Cuahtemoc and other Angry Aztecs whose idea of fun was ripping out human hearts. Part of a series of books about history with the nasty bits left in!

An accompanying sticker book entices buyers with this bit of verbage:

Angry Aztecs Sticker Book
Crammed full of facts and fun, this book will tell you everything you'd want to know about the angry Aztecs. Not only that but this book will also show you how to: stage a savage sacrifice- over and over again, bring a brutal battle to life and decide who wins, and become the emperor's magician and make sense of the signs.

It's not that I object that this history be revealed, after all it is our history, but to gear it to 8-12 year olds as something fun - well, just how much fun do we want our kids to think a savage sacrifice can really be?

Reports are surfacing that the Angry Aztecs is available and being used in the New York City public schools. On the internet, I can only find evidence of it being publicized in the United Kingdom.

With all the problems of self-esteem our children have in school today, I wonder how wise it is to promote such a book in public schools where it is more the norm than not that the majority of students are children of color and Latino to boot.

So, Latina Lista tracked down the author of the Angry Aztecs and the other Horrible Histories, Terry Deary, and asked him to respond to criticisms of the Angry Aztecs.

Terry Deary graciously replied, "I write entertainment for children and no one ought to take my books seriously. I have no further comment to make and would not be interested in responding to criticisms from individuals. If they have an alternative view then they can publish it. That is their right as it is mine."

Come to find out Deary lives in the United Kingdom and so he's an ocean away from all the turmoil that is happening lately on these shores.

But for him to say that no one should take his books seriously is like saying when children see a piece of candy on the floor, they shouldn't pick it up.

Children of all people will take his book seriously and Scholastic, by virtue of practically having a free reign in our public school classrooms with the availability of their books and book fairs, has a responsibility to maintain not only their sensitivity to all the cultures but to understand that children don't segregate the truth from "fun" in those books that are based on factual events or historical figures.

In fairness, there is another title in the series called "The Incredible Incas." It is a much more uplifting title but I have not been able to find a descriptive blurb to see what they say about it.

Latina Lista (http://latinalista.blogspot.com) is all for getting kids to read and enjoy history and we understand that kids are captivated by the gross and gory more than anything else, but it's one thing to write that kind of history in such a way that it captivates children and it's quite another to write it for entertainment purposes at the expense of making fun of a proud culture whose descendents know very well from whom they came.