In this stunningly beautiful picture book, Guatemalan American author Nydia Armendia-Sanchez and Colombian illustrator Dana SanMar collaborate to celebrate women throughout history who have narrated their ancestors’ and their own stories through textiles, specifically through the creation of huipils. A huipil is “the top portion of a traditional dress woven and worn by Maya women in Guatemala and surrounding areas.”
When a young girl picks up a backstrap loom used to make huipils, she feels close to the women who came before her, “each one a master weaver, / guiding the sword / and the threads / that would pass through / the loom.” She notices a “kaleidoscope of colors” waiting to be woven.
The girl takes pride in her huipil: “Together, the threads in my huipil / hold a message, / tell a story / of who we are. / Of who I am.”
Huipils do more than display aspects of the weavers’ surroundings or of nature---mountains, volcanoes, sunshine, butterflies, stars, ducks, eagles, and more. Huipils also always “hold the threads that remember and feel, / that embrace us and color the sky.”
The girl poignantly points out the injustice weavers experience when tourists purchase their labor-intensive handiwork at unfair prices: “My family shares our culture with others, but mama’s coin purse is never full. We struggle for fair prices, for rights, for education, but still, our tradition persists.”
In an author note, Armendia-Sanchez writes, “Being of Guatemalan heritage myself, I wrote this book as an expression of my admiration for Guatemalan Indigenous textiles whereby Maya women honor their ancestral origins, celebrate their voices and talents, and maintain traditions that have endured for thousands of generations.”
The Women Before Us provides an excellent cross-cultural journey for Christian parents and their kids to enjoy together and to stimulate their thinking about the myriad unique cultures that exist in God’s world.
(Candlewick)
About the Author
Sonya VanderVeen Feddema is a freelance writer and a member of Covenant CRC in St. Catharines, Ontario.