Happy Dia de los Muertos! Duncan Tonatiuh Joins Jolene Gutiérrez in Conversation

As far as I can tell, today is Dia de los Muertos, and to celebrate I am absolutely honored and delighted to host a conversation between two picture book powerhouses. Jolene Gutiérrez, a veteran teacher librarian, has written a picture book called The Ofrenda That We Built (Chronicle Books, out now). A cumulative tale, the book reminds me of both The Cazuela That the Farm Maiden Stirred and An Ofrenda for Perro. Jolene explains where the book came from this way:

“My husband immigrated to America from Mexico. To help my daughter Shaian and her brother stay connected to their heritage, I surrounded them with Mexican traditions, food, and music. It’s gained special significance since my grandmother and my father both died on November 1 during Día de Muertos. This story was inspired by the ofrenda that we built to honor our ancestors after my brother-in-law passed away in 2018.”

Today, I’m handing the interviewing reins to none other than Jolene herself, alongside fellow author (as well as illustrator) Duncan Tonatiuh. Relatively recently, Duncan created Día de Muertos: Números. As the plot description for the book reads:

“From award-winning and beloved author-illustrator Duncan Tonatiuh comes this celebratory bilingual picture book centering on a Día de Muertos ofrenda (Day of the Dead altar), constructed annually to honor the memory and welcome the spirit of a loved one. The book uses a counting structure, from one to ten, to focus on family members and their offerings, with a double-gatefold finale that opens to reveal the family gathered around the fully decorated ofrenda with all of their offerings. Included at the back of the book is a brief author’s note that lends additional context on the holiday.”

Today, Duncan and Jolene discuss their work, their books, the holiday, and more.

Duncan Tonatiuh: Hi, Jolene! We both wrote books about Día de Muertos. What’s your most memorable Day of the Dead memory?

Jolene Gutiérrez: Hi, Duncan!My favorite memories are making crafts to decorate our ofrenda with my daughter Shaian–she taught me how to make papelpicado, and we’ve painted alebrijes and made nichos. What’s your favorite Día de Muertos memory?

Duncan: When I was six years old, I helped my aunt make an ofrenda. She told me that we had to put a glass of water for the spirit of our loved ones who had passed away in case they were thirsty when they returned. I kept looking at the glass throughout the day to see if they had drunk the water. In addition to making an ofrenda, are there other traditions or family rituals you have during Day of the Dead?

Jolene: My paternal grandmother and my father both died on November 1st, forty-two years apart, so that’s made Día de Muertos even more important to our family. In addition to creating an ofrenda and visiting the cemetery, we enjoy good food, bringing out photographs, telling stories, singing songs, and remembering. More recently, we’ve started visiting community ofrendas and celebrations. How have your personal Día de Muertos celebrations changed over time?

Duncan: My parents passed away in recent years. Since then, my children, my wife, and I always go visit their gravesite on the Day of the Dead. The cemetery in San Miguel, where they are buried, is always full of families remembering their loved ones. Everyone brings food and spends the day there. The place is full of flowers and music. It is a very special day. How has the Day of the Dead helped your family feel connected with their Mexican background?

Jolene: My husband was born in Mexico but our kids were teenagers before our family was able to visit Mexico together. We visited cemeteries where some of their ancestors were buried and stayed with family they’d never met in person. Being able to celebrate a holiday like Día de Muertos back home in Colorado reminded our family of a connection to another place and the continuation of the traditions of those who came before us. How has this celebration helped you feel more connected to your Mexican heritage?

Duncan: I grew up in Mexico, and I celebrated the Day of the Dead every year. I never thought too much about it. It was just something that always happened and that everyone celebrated. But when I was a teenager, I moved to the United States. As I spent more time in the US, I began to miss things that were always around me in Mexico, like the food, the music, and the traditions. I became interested in Mexican culture and art and began to realize how unique and special a holiday like the Day of the Dead is. What was it like to write a book with your daughter? How did that co-authoring process work?

Jolene: It was amazing to create a book together! When my kids were little, I searched for books that would help them learn more about their Mexican heritage, and those books were hard to find back then. When my family was together during the pandemic, Shaian and I worked together to create something beautiful–something to honor and celebrate our family. Shaian is really musically talented, so even when I would go a little “ear deaf” to the rhythm and rhyme in our manuscript, she would help keep me on track. Duncan, you know what it’s like to collaborate because with some projects, you’re both author and illustrator, and with other projects, you illustrate someone else’s words. How do those experiences differ?

Duncan: The nice thing about being both the author and illustrator of a picture book is that I have more control and I can go back and forth between revising the text and the drawings. Hopefully this makes the words and pictures work very smoothly. What is nice about illustrating other people’s texts is that they write differently than I do. It presents new challenges. For instance, some years ago I illustrated a book called Esquivel! by Susan Wood. In the text, she uses a lot of sounds, which I don’t normally do. I had a lot of fun hand-drawing letters to try and make words like bzzz, whoosh, squiddle, look like the sounds they make. Speaking of fun, how did you celebrate when your book came out?

Jolene: Shaian is working at an international school in Hangzhou, China, so we did an Instagram Live with the Highlights Foundation to celebrate this beautiful book! Prior to that, and prior to our words being illustrated by the amazing Gabby Zapata, Shaian created a little video with some of her own illustrations of our story as a gift to me, and later, she received a grant to travel to Mexico and create art there. Can you speak to how (and/or why) you’ve used the art in Mixtec codices as inspiration to create your own unique style?

Duncan: As a kid I loved comic books and anime. That is what first inspired me to draw. But years later, when I was an art student in New York, I became interested in Mesoamerican art. Hundreds of years ago, the Mixtecs, the Aztecs and the Maya, among others, made books. They had a very unique way of drawing. I try to draw in a similar style. Hopefully it is a way of continuing that long and rich art tradition.

Many thanks to Caitlin Ek and the folks at Chronicle for helping to put this together. You can find both The Ofrenda That We Built and Día de Muertos: Números on library and bookstore shelves right now. Find them, and a happy Dia de los Muertos to you!

Filed under: Interviews