Grade 3-5-In this picture book, Don Aurelio stumbles into the lair of three witches who eat spiders and drink blood. The youngest of the trio pities him and tells him how to escape as well as how to release her from the other witches' thrall. He must steal her face from its hiding place and burn it, replacing it with one of his own making. However, he falters. Her face is so beautiful that he can't bear to destroy it. She wears the ugly face of leather that he made, but of course his broken promise is discovered at last, and she must resume her anguished witchhood. Trying to chase her as she flies away, he falls from the window and is crippled for life, never marries, and leaves vain regrets as his epitaph. Kimmel has chosen to retell one of the most resonant of the Mexican witch-tales. It is filled with fear and danger, horror and beauty, love and betrayal, useless penance, and redemption denied-strong stuff, and Vanden Broeck's illustrations don't take the curse off, though their beauty is alluring. Grainy shadows tipped with colorful fire give a shuddery immediacy to the desolation of the landscape. One can almost hear the warning creak of the single lantern over the door of the witches' house. A hair-raiser at any time of the year.
Ruth Semrau, Lovejoy School, Allen, TX
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Gr. 7-12. Kimmel's latest is a very sophisticated tale in picture-book format. Don Aurelio rescues a young woman from her final transformation into a bruja, or witch, by hiding her false but beautiful witch face and replacing it with an ugly face of leather that he stitched himself. He brings his leather-faced bride, Emilia, home to his family, and although his family is kind, they cannot help but wonder how he can love someone with such a face, no matter how beautiful her heart. Filled with doubt, Aurelio gives Emilia back her beautiful witch face, with disastrous consequences: "You never loved me. It was the face you loved, even though it was the face of a witch." So saying, Emilia flees on magic wings. Aurelio, trying to follow, falls to the stone courtyard, never to walk again. Powerfully illustrated with dark, shadowy paintings, Kimmel's retelling (drawn from oral and written sources) increases in both drama and momentum as Aurelio and Emilia play their parts through to the tragic finale. This is potent storytelling for the junior-high and high-school set, but it may need some booktalking because of the young-looking format. Janice Del Negro
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