They Call Me Guero: A Border Kid's Poems by David Bowles

Bibliography

Bowles, David. They Call Me Güero: a Border Kid's Poems. El Paso, TX: Cinco Puntos Press, 2018. ISBN 1947627074

Summary

Mexican-American, red-headed, freckled, kind, and poetic “Güero” is a twelve year old living near the border. Güero and his friends, “Los Bobbys”, are seventh graders finding their place as “derds”, diverse nerds. They have bullies, first crushes, school assignments,  Along with “Los Bobbys”, Güero has his close Mexican-American family to help him cope with the challenges of being a border kid. 

Analysis

On the cover of They Call Me Güero: a Border Kid's Poems is an orange and blue illustration of Güero running through the desert with his Feathered Coyote mask. It is the perfect cover for this culturally rich, coming of age story. It captures this richness and youthful spirit of this novel in verse. The book includes a table of contents, making it easy to locate specific poems and preview the titles of the poems in the book. There is also a glossary at the back of the book with a list of the spanish words used in the book and their definitions, making it accessible and an opportunity to learn more about the language and culture. 

Inside, there is a story of Güero, a twelve year old Mexican-American boy who finds his people, “los Bobbys”, a tough as nails girlfriend, Joanna Padilla, and his place in the world as a pale-skinned, Mexican-American border kid all told through beautiful verse. The poems are a mix of free verse and rhyming poems. They often use spanish words and phrases, like the poem Lullaby where a song is shown in both Spanish and English side by side. Sometimes the poems have repetition to emphasize like in Pulga Pantoum where lines are repeated as Güero reflects on going to the pulga (market) with his mother. The poet, David Bowles, used beautiful descriptions through similes such as “like grains of sugar on a chile pepper” and “like a Monterrey oak gone from acorn to tall and broad and shady tree”. As the main character discovers his own passion for poetry, new types of poems appear in the book such as the eight haikus in Food for Each Season. This poem is an incredibly fun read that students might find themselves represented in whether they identify as Mexican-American or not. 

Sample Poem

TRICKSTER

Mr. Gil, our social studies teacher,

announces a “thematic unit” one day.

He and Ms. Wong are teaming up

to teach us about...masks. 

People make masks around the world,

but we focus on Mexico and Korea. 

We learn about ancient rituals, 

plays, dances--and how newer traditions

blended with the old ways

and made different masks.

We read and write and reflect.

To me, the best thing that masks

can either hide or reveal your identity.

You can pretend to be something else--

a god, a monster, a princess, a priest--

or you can show your true self,

your animal soul,

your skeleton.

For our final project, Ms. Wong

invites to class her friend, a Mexican artist

named Celeste de Maíz, expert mask-maker.

She shows us her work: crazy, awesome

faces carved from mesquite,

painted in wild colors.

Then she shows us how to make our own

from papier-mâché. I think long and hard.

Should I pretend or reveal? What’s inside me?

Mr. Gil looks up my birth date. He tells me

that in the Aztec and Maya calendar

the day is 11 Dog. Any canine, he says,

might be my animal soul.

Right away, I know. The Feathered Coyote.

Aztec Trickster. God of music and mischief, 

wisdom and story-telling. All decked out

with orange and gold feathers 

to echo my own copper hair.

The mask is straight fire!

And los Bobbys have made some, too:

Handy’s is a bright blue skull

lined with silver flowers.

Lee makes an old Korean monk

with rainbow streaks down his nose.

But Delgado blows us all away--

a carnival mask with a duckbill

and feathery horns! Savage!

That weekend, we can’t resist.

These masks can’t just go on our walls.

We walk out to the desert at the city’s edge

wearing shorts and sneakers.

Then we strap on our masks

and run through the chaparral

chasing lizards and spiders,

playing out our secret selves

to earth and sky. 

Activity 

Explain the summary of the novel to students and share that you will be reading a poem from the book. Read the poem aloud once. Ask students to share what they visualized when reading the poem. Read the poem a second time. Let students choose to create a visual to go with the poem or sketch out their own mask. Let students share what they created and show student’s the book cover.