In 2019 Xavier Garza will be inducted into the prestigious Texas Institute of Letters. In 2014 he was awarded both the NAACS Tejas Young Adult Book Award and the Texas Institute of Letters Children's Book Award. He has authored and illustrated fourteen books, and has received such prestigious awards as the Americas Honor Book Award in 2005, the Tejas Star Book Award three times from 2007-2010 and the Pura Belpré Honor Book award in 2012. Garza has exhibited his art and performed his stories in venues throughout Texas, Arizona and the state of Washington. The imagination of children ages 4-9 will soar with this fun, suspenseful story by acclaimed author and artist Xavier Garza, whose knack for storytelling and creating lively illustrations captures the spirit of naughty Zulema.īorn and raised in the Rio Grande Valley, author and lucha libre aficionado Xavier Garza is a prolific and enthusiastic author, artist, and storyteller whose work focuses primarily on his experiences growing up in the small border town of Rio Grande City and is a lively documentation of the dreams, superstitions, and heroes in the bigger-than-life world of South Texas. And when a huge owl with glowing red eyes smashes through the window and swoops into her room, Zulema is ready to agree to its demands-even if it means promising to be nice! In this exciting story about the consequences of being mean to others, Zulema learns something about herself and possibly her grandmother too. Only I can play tricks! But as the noise at her window continues, the insolent little girl begins to lose her bravado.

The stories tell of a witch who can transform into a large bird after dark, commonly taking the form of an owl. La Mujer Lechuza, or The Owl Witch, is popular in Hispanic folklore. Nothing scares her because she's the meanest child in the world! So when she gets into bed one night and something begins to tap at her window, Zulema isn't afraid at first. Describing the owl as being approximately 7ft tall, with a wingspan of 15ft. Grandma Sabina calmly warns her rude granddaughter about the Witch Owl who prowls the night looking for mean little children, but Zulema just laughs defiantly at such a preposterous story. When Grandma Sabina comes to live with the family, the first thing Zulema says to her is, You sure look old and ugly. But maybe, just maybe, her almost ninety-year-old Grandma Sabina does. Son of Nyx, the night was also, according to the Iliad, the twin brother of Tànato or Thanatos. It was known to the Romans under the name of Somnus. In Greek mythology, Hypnos was a deity who took the form of an owl and flapped its wings to make men sleep. She doesn't have any friends, animals run away from her in fear, and her mom doesn't know what to do with her. Hypnos and Thanatos, Sleep and His Half-Brother Death by John William Waterhouse. Zulema Ortiz is the meanest little girl in the whole wide world.

Lechuza witch owl