Use these links to supplement and complement students’ reading of the work and to increase their overall enjoyment of literature. Challenge them to discern parallel themes, engage through visual and aural stimuli, and delve deeper into the thematic possibilities presented by the title.
Recommended Texts for Pairing
Libba Bray’s Going Bovine
- Bray’s novel is a modern rendition of Don Quixote, another classic text rendered modern.
- The novel also features the blend of supernatural elements with everyday reality and a young character whose adventures in the world lead him to greater maturity, much like the Bildungsroman.
- Going Bovine on SuperSummary
Kaela Rivera’s Cece Rios and the Desert of Souls
- This middle-grade novel takes place in a fictional world inhabited by creatures and beings from Mexican and Aztec folklore, much like Summer of the Mariposas.
Charles Mann’s Before Columbus
- Charles Mann’s book explains what the Americas were like before the Europeans arrived.
- His rich language humanizes the unfolding of world events in the Western Hemisphere.
- Chapter 4, “To the Land of the Four Quarters,” discusses the Aztecs specifically.
Introduction to the Aztecs (Mexica)
- Short video explaining Mexico City’s Aztec origins
Curanderas—Women who Heal
- This page from New Mexico Historic Women Marker Initiative briefly explains the legacy of curanderas in New Mexico, their roots being in Mexican indigenous practices.
Revisionist History: “General Chapman’s Last Stand”
- This episode of Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast explores some of the lesser-known historical roots of the crisis at the US-Mexico Border.
Clarissa Pinkola Estés’s Women Who Run with the Wolves (1992), Chapter 10, pages 301-303
- Estés is a Jungian psychologist and folklorist who combines her fields to share insights into the collective and individual psyches of women.
- Her chapter on creativity features two versions of the tale of La Llorona, humanizing her story and connecting her message to the women’s experiences much like McCall does in Summer of the Mariposas.
- If available, share this passage with students to help them see how stories change to suit the person telling the story and the time they live in. It can also be used to discuss how folklore helps humans make sense of the psyche.
- Additionally, Estés’s excerpt will help readers understand the purpose and power of McCall’s choosing to write a story that allows previously maligned female characters to “tell [their] side of the story” in a novel that features a primarily female cast. This is related to the theme of Reframing Female Stereotypes.
“La Llorona – Weeping Woman of the Southwest”
- This page from Legends of America includes a variety of tales about La Llorona, demonstrating the different ways she has been portrayed in American Southwest and Northern Mexican folklore.
- The bottom half of the page crowdsources ghost stories and so-called encounters with La Llorona.