JUAREZ: Hero of Mexico

by Wine Brown Baker ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 24, 1942

This Junior Literary Guild selection illustrated by Marion Greenwood is one of the best and one of the most important biographies we have read, because it not only presents the story of a humble but most important person but because it helps straighten out the tangled history of Mexico in our rather confused minds. Beniot Juares, a full-blooded Indian, was born and brought up in a village of Oxaca. At the age of twelve he ran away from his cruel, narrow uncle and joined his sister who was a cook in the family of Senor Maza, a broad-minded, kind man who lived in the city. Both the Senor and Fray Antonio befriended him, saw to it that he had a good education and even set him up to law courses at the new Institute of Science and Arts. In 1821 Mexico was free of Spain but just starting on her own career of troubles, with Santa Anna as the cruel Hitler-like leader from time to time. In Juarez a ""granite-like shell covered the mind not the heart"" and in many ways he was very similar to our Lincoln; he was homely, gangling though short, and wore a frock coat and stove-pipe hat. In 1843 he married Maza's daughter after he had courted her by the strange custom of ""playing bear"". The story carries you through heart-breaking periods of capture, exile in New Orleans, were, revolutions, the Plan of Ayutla, the Three Years Civil War, the period of two presidents, the fantastic time of Maximilian and Carlotta, Juarez as President, and finally his death. You finish the book with the most whole-hearted respect and affection for this little man who suffered so much that his people might have freedom. At the end of the volume is a Bibliography, a Pronunciation list and an Index.

Pub Date: Sept. 24, 1942

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Vanguard

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1942

Categories: NONFICTION