Illustrations and text describe how the Mixtecs create painted manuscripts, or codices, that reflect their way of life and document their history, science, land tenure, tribute, and sacred rituals. A young Aztec girl tells her little brother how their parents create beautiful painted manuscripts, or codices. She explains to him how paper is made from local plants and how the long paper is folded into a book. Her parents and others paint the codices...

Josefina and her sisters distrust learning to read and write, as well as other changes their Tía Dolores is bringing to the household, because they fear they will lose their memories of their mother.

When Tía Dolores, the beloved aunt who has cared for the Montoya family since the death of their mother, announces that she is planning to leave, Josefina and her sisters try to find a way to change her mind.

A biography of the explorer whose brutal conquest of the Aztecs in Mexico was responsible for the first Spanish settlements in the New World.