The Hummingbird's Daughter in Around the World

Apr 24, 2007 Jenny (Reading Envy) rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites, location-mexico, read2006

A great book about a girl in Mexico born with the gift to heal and ends up sparking a revolution. It helps if you know Spanish, since a lot of the dialogue and some of the vocabulary is in Spanish!

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Apr 11, 2012 Suzanne rated it liked it

Shelves: around-my-bookshelf-year-2, fiction, book-club-2015

Based on the legend of Urrea's sainted cousin, the author uses historical fiction to bring 16 year old Teresita to life, during a period of violence and political upheaval in Mexico, near the end of the 19th century.

What I liked about the book: learning about Mexican culture, the civil war and some of it's causes, Teresita's early life and her relationship with her father. I am fascinated with the lives of saints, and was excited to learn that The Hummingbird's Daughter would chronicle such a li ...more

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Aug 06, 2014 Nick rated it liked it

In “The Hummingbird’s Daughter”, the Mexican-born writer Luis Alberto Urrea takes up the story of his great-aunt, the half-Indian seer who became known by the people, not the Church, as Santa Teresa of Cabora. Teresa lived during in Northwest Mexico, then one of the most disconnected regions of her poor, sprawling country, across the border from the harshest part of the Old West. As a girl, she emerged from a trance with gifts: she cured the desperately ill with herbs and the laying on of hands In “The Hummingbird’s Daughter”, the Mexican-born writer Luis Alberto Urrea takes up the story of his great-aunt, the half-Indian seer who became known by the people, not the Church, as Santa Teresa of Cabora. Teresa lived during in Northwest Mexico, then one of the most disconnected regions of her poor, sprawling country, across the border from the harshest part of the Old West. As a girl, she emerged from a trance with gifts: she cured the desperately ill with herbs and the laying on of hands and moved the local populace with her homilies about justice It was Teresa’s misfortune, and that of her people, to live during the long dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz, whose religion was commerce and the obliteration of anyone who disagreed. While Teresa seems never to have actively fomented rebellion, there were some among her listeners who had taken up arms or were ready to do so, and the Diaz government was never one to wait for proof. Urrea focuses on Teresa’s story, not the rebellion, which was brutally repressed. As a writer with a dark and irreverent sense of humor, Urrea writes mordant characters well: Teresa’s father, the curandera who teaches her herbs, and the newspaperman Lauro Aguirre. His wit is genial enough to excuse those moments when his characters sound too modern for their times. This is territory Urrea knows well, and his sense of the landscape and the people who scratch a living (or don’t) from it have an authentic feel – with one critical exception, for which he may be excused: Teresa herself. He never solves the mystery of who this gifted, strange girl actually was, cannot convey to the reader a plausible sense of what kind of thoughts, feelings, and internal life she might have had. As a girl, barely an adolescent, with the power to heal the body and stir the soul, she may not be a personage who can be reduced to print. Still, this is a compelling story otherwise largely forgotten, Urrea gives it life, and that is an achievement by itself. ...more

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Sep 18, 2009 Janine rated it liked it · review of another edition

I was looking forward to Urrea's book, having devoured The Devil's Highway a few years back. For me, Urrea truly understands the border struggle, being a child of la frontera himself. Teresita, the main character in this book, is the half-Indian child of a wealthy Mexican landowner, never touched my heart really. She is too distant; and Urrea never brought her close. First, she seems a nobody, left by her mother to an aunt who despises her, letting her sleep with the pigs. Suddenly, and to me no I was looking forward to Urrea's book, having devoured The Devil's Highway a few years back. For me, Urrea truly understands the border struggle, being a child of la frontera himself. Teresita, the main character in this book, is the half-Indian child of a wealthy Mexican landowner, never touched my heart really. She is too distant; and Urrea never brought her close. First, she seems a nobody, left by her mother to an aunt who despises her, letting her sleep with the pigs. Suddenly, and to me not at all presented well, she makes her way into her rich father's family. Just like that, she steps into the house and is accepted in. She has another half-brother who tries the same but is not successfull. And, as a womanizer, her father has plenty of other illicit children running around too. Urrea did not convince me why Teresita was chosen. Of course, from the pig stall to the feather bed, her life takes off. Dresses, shoes, good food, books, even friends. She now has it all. Somehow, supernatural abilities appear, but again, completely out of the blue. She is killed, then rises from the dead and begins to perform miracles. Suddenly she is another Virgen de Guadalupe, with the sick and the dying gathering around her and worshipping her. Urrea does better with the symbolic and the environment. I see that Teresita represents Mexico and its struggles to become a democratic and peaceful country. She is a symbol of perfection, self-sacrifice and unconditional love for even the most wretched of society. She is what so many Mexicans aspire to be and wish for their country. Politics become mixed into the story and somehow everything explodes at the end, just before she is carried to the cross like Jesus. I somehow lost it there. What started like a fairy tale or family legend turned into some type of martyr story stuck in the past. I could not see the connection to today and modernity that Urrea has done so well in previous works. The book is too long, the story line to unreal and the characters to distant. And I am just a little bit to disappointed.
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Feb 03, 2011 Crystal rated it it was amazing

Fantastic!
What a variety of paths this book takes the reader. It's one in which there are multiple characters so attention to who is who is pertinent when reading this. It gets intricate so it is not a light read by any means. With dedication and focus, the book is worth the read. ...more

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