El Bowie Baker by Toni Viva Muñoz (TCU Press, 2025)
Title: El Bowie Baker
Author: Toni Viva Muñoz
Publisher: TCU Press (2025)
ISBN: 9780875659114
This reader’s impression was written and sent to LitNet on the writer's own initiative.
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Toni Viva Muñoz’s debut nonfiction children’s book for nine- to 11-year-old readers tackles a big issue with as much poise and enchantment for its intended young readers, as for conveying the gut-punching complexities of life on the border to adult readers.
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El Bowie Bakery (2025) beautifully captures the story of a girl growing up on the United States-Mexico border, her journey to understand the complexities of the border, and what it means to call this contentious space home. The narrative resonates with the reader, evoking a profound sense of belonging and connection, and fostering a deep emotional engagement. The book delves into intricate themes of identity, belonging and the interplay of cultures, offering a rich and intellectually stimulating reading experience.
Toni Viva Muñoz’s debut nonfiction children’s book for nine- to 11-year-old readers tackles a big issue with as much poise and enchantment for its intended young readers, as for conveying the gut-punching complexities of life on the border to adult readers. Even if the reader is of a different culture, the book challenges your perspective and leaves you intrigued and reflective, offering an intellectually stimulating experience.
“Fall in New Mexico is the most miraculous time of year,” Toni, the adult narrator, starts her story, telling it to her two young daughters. From the very first sentence, the setting takes centre stage in the narrator’s story, which is told from the perspective of herself as a child who is perhaps no older than her real-life oldest daughter, judging by the illustrations. Life in the border town of La Union, New Mexico, is picturesque and jovial, and one’s senses tingle with the sights and aromas the young protagonist offers you on a plate. Every day in these tiny towns along the Rio Grande, she tells her daughters, it is about familia, but Sundays are special. Sundays are about her abuelos.
Like all lucky children, Toni has a grandmother; hers has as many names as friends and relatives. To Toni, her Abuela Cuca is the personification of faith and homeland. Just like the women who came before her, she was born in La Union, and serving the community and the church is as important as the tortillas they cook together after mass. Like all lucky children, she also has a grandfather, who towers above the rest of the family like all grandfathers wish they could. Unlike her raven-haired abuela, who has “skin as smooth as desert dunes”, her Abuelo Poncho is fair-skinned and has the whitest cotton-candy cloud of hair.
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Spiritedly standing on her tippy toes, Toni announces to her grandfather that she is also tall, and he confirms that Americans are indeed tall. The catalyst to Toni’s becoming aware of the in-betweenness that she embodies is when she then enquires of her grandfather whether they are also Mexican.
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Spiritedly standing on her tippy toes, Toni announces to her grandfather that she is also tall, and he confirms that Americans are indeed tall. The catalyst to Toni’s becoming aware of the in-betweenness that she embodies is when she then enquires of her grandfather whether they are also Mexican. “‘No, sólo Americanos,’ he always insisted.” Her more lenient grandmother quickly interjects, confirming that they are both.
From here, the story turns to Poncho. In fragments, Toni learns of his life before he was a grandfather, even before he was married to Cuca, when he grew up in Segundo Barrio, El Paso, where as a boy he – like so many other little boys – had to work. She learns the love story of their meeting, of how Cuca was asked to pray for an unknown soldier fighting in the Korean War, who turned out to be her future husband. Poncho’s return from the war brought happiness in meeting Cuca and led to their marriage a year later, but also a disheartening confrontation with identity and belonging in a country that did not honour his wartime sacrifice. A shift in identification follows, suggesting that his son – Toni’s father – later mirrors his less Mexican-centric outlook on life.
A traumatic event involving superglue brings the story to its first climax. It also acts as the inciting incident to set the protagonist on a new path, as the falling action from this point on will disrupt her life, challenging her status quo regarding her sense of belonging. Interestingly, the falling action belongs to her grandfather and his story, which speaks to Muñoz’s stylistic skill, as the story presents a somewhat more complex structure than many children’s books for this age range. The plot seamlessly switches from a focus on Cuca to Poncho – all through the perspective of young Toni – presenting events in fragments, which not only adds to the rise of tension, but suggests a disjointed sense of identity to which doubly hybridised cultures such as those living on the border might relate. Double hybridisation – with its history of native American inhabitants, Spanish and Mexican settlement, and eventual recognition of American territory – is a dominant theme that Toni is left to navigate, through her relationship with her grandparents. “This land went through many changes, Mija,” her grandfather affirms. Here, we learn about Poncho’s life, but the relationship between him and Toni is also emphasised.
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The plot seamlessly switches from a focus on Cuca to Poncho – all through the perspective of young Toni – presenting events in fragments, which not only adds to the rise of tension, but suggests a disjointed sense of identity to which doubly hybridised cultures such as those living on the border might relate.
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The disjointed narrative that switches from Cuca to Poncho also presents an engaging juxtaposition between female and male perspectives of life on the border. As the first ten pages are primarily devoted to Abuela Cuca, Toni’s relationship with her grandmother, and the role that the women in her family play within the community, one initially has the sense that the story will focus on the matriarch. Visual depictions of Our Lady of Guadalupe, patroness of Mexico and symbol of Mexican identity, faith and motherhood, affirm that the women’s role in this community is one of serving. The representation of the male is depicted solely by Abuelo Poncho (and just two mentions of his son, Toni’s father), who is more practically minded, given how he addresses the traumatic incident Toni suffers, not to mention his self-awareness as a marginalised American. It almost suggests that the border is both male and female in all it offers.
The depiction of the setting is the most interesting and complex element in the book. The illustrations are crucial in setting the scene, literally and symbolically. Toni’s little border town, as the first sentences allude to, is at the centre of her universe, imbuing the setting with profound meaning. As literary theorists argue, place is more than a physical reality; it is a space enriched with human experience and understanding. It is, therefore, a centre of meaning constructed by experience. Young Toni’s experience of place is inseparable from her relationship with those who also inhabit this space. The illustrations beautifully capture this. The girl on the cover in the yellow dress and earrings – almost mirroring the state flag – gazes out over the New Mexican landscape, inviting readers to immerse themselves in the story’s setting.
The devil, as always, is in the detail. The blended approach, wherein painting is mixed with photographic evidence from the area and the author’s life, presents a unique and captivating reading experience. This is not just a story; the illustrations remind us that this is real life. Considering the nonfiction coming-of-age genre, the illustrations succeed in capturing not only the reader’s attention, but also their trust. It is easy to forget that you’re not just reading a “story”, but the “real story” of the author’s life. This alludes to the value of story – and particularly children’s stories – and its ability to address difficult and complex topics in such a manner that even children can comprehend them.
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Magical realism is a common literary technique in Latinx literature, and this synchronicity is an eloquent example thereof, and also conveys Muñoz’s stylistic skill and deep-rooted understanding of her culture.
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Different terrains of the border geography are represented on the cover, echoing the diversity of the space and its people: desert areas, urban areas and areas with adobe houses. The young Toni looks out over this landscape and everything it comprises, but also towards her future – she cannot be separated from this space. This landscape overview is repeated as the first illustration in the book, where there is a clear distinction between lush farmlands of corn, a town of adobe houses, a church and a bustling market area. The mixture of photographic evidence and painted illustrations plays a game juxtaposing the imaginary and the real, asking the reader to decide if the imaginary here is also not real.
The blended illustrations act as a bridge to understand the complexities of space, by transcending the difficulty that the language medium might experience, for example, incorporating the past in the present by indicating that time is in flux in this space. In this first illustration, native Americans on horseback appear in the same spacetime as people busying themselves in a modern market, while boys in contemporary clothing kick a soccer ball down a dirt road, and people gather for mass in front of La Union’s first church (circa 1916). Cohesively reiterating this motif throughout the book, gusts of wind coil through the air, brushing up against all of Toni’s family – who are depicted in black-and-white photographs and colour illustrations – and her ancestors, or those no longer with us, who appear in sepia photography or a musty, black-and-white painting. The living and the dead are presented synchronously, sharing the same spacetime. Magical realism is a common literary technique in Latinx literature, and this synchronicity is an eloquent example thereof, and also conveys Muñoz’s stylistic skill and deep-rooted understanding of her culture. Even though distinguishable, the past cannot be ignored or sundered from the present.
The title reinforces this idea as it refers to a bakery in El Paso that Poncho takes Toni to. It soon comes to signify the relationship between the past and the present in a second climax that significantly brings the story to an emotional peak, also denoting the double hybridised state of the border and its people. Muñoz entrancingly portrays the border’s spirit of place, where a deep, inextricable and even religious bond exists between the space and its inhabitants.
Concerning her characters, there is Toni, her Abuelos Cuca and Poncho, and there is a brief mention of her father and her daughters. The protagonist changes because of her relationship with her grandfather and his complex history. Without spelling it out, the narrator presents just enough information for the reader to wonder what caused Abuelo Poncho to be so ambiguous concerning his identity. Through his story, Toni comes to understand that the border is a space that’s neither here nor there, while there are enough suggestions for her to realise that one can be a prisoner of this in-betweenness. Ultimately, when grief settles on Toni and her family, it is her grandparents’ story that she presents to her daughters, stating that it now “belongs” to them.
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Muñoz achieves a balance of telling a story beautifully while abstaining from politicising the ideas the book scrutinises, and nor does it aim to exploit its young readers.
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The story asks what it means to be an American in an un-American American border town. Where you are both and neither – thematically, this in-betweenness is the story’s beating heart. At the same time, it also explores issues concerning the politics of space, barriers and imposed limitations, marginalisation, duty and responsibility, grief and love.
Muñoz achieves a balance of telling a story beautifully while abstaining from politicising the ideas the book scrutinises, and nor does it aim to exploit its young readers. Ultimately, all children’s books are political, because everything is. The adult narrator does not interfere when presenting the story through her naive perspective as a child. In so doing, she does not influence or dictate to her daughters, allowing them – and the reader – to wander in their culture’s in-betweenness and letting them make up their minds, just like she had to as a child.
The book is also well suited for educational purposes. It can undoubtedly be accompanied by a teacher’s guide, which might not be too far-fetched given its production by an academic publisher (TCU Press). For one, the narrator reads the story to her daughters, obeying her grandparents’ instructions never to forget where she came from, as Muñoz notes in the acknowledgements. At the base level of a children’s book, it lends itself to basic language acquisition, as the Spanish used by the young protagonist is printed in bold turquoise lettering. (The turquoise is also reminiscent of New Mexico, known for its gemstone mining.) These are words Toni associates with home and familia. Linguistic code-switching is indicative not only of the context in which the author grew up, providing an additional layer of trust to the nonfiction coming-of-age story, but also of the context in which the reader lives, as the Hispanic population makes up the largest share of the population of Texas, where the author resides. As such, the story is suited to the young American reader who can identify, if not with the protagonist, then with some of its themes, while being asked to practise empathy and critical thinking. The same also applies to readers outside of the United States, as these themes are universal to all cultures. Given the attention that American politics demands at present, the book also offers a fascinating glimpse into the heart of the marginalised American psyche.
Even though the moral that the story offers might not be novel, considering the real-world context in which the book is published and read, it nevertheless aims for the visceral. This does not mean that we are witnessing an unmatured writer merely trying to get to the depths of a complex issue on behalf of a young reader. On the contrary, the linguistic depiction of the border space speaks to a deep personal understanding. What excites me most about the book is the author’s stylistic skill in presenting it as lyrically as she does, while telling a captivating story. This is doubly impressive when one considers the author’s involvement in creating the illustrations, which crucially form part of the narrative and the successful telling of a good children’s story in the form of a picture book. El Bowie Bakery is an enthralling contribution to Latinx literature, while excelling as a nonfiction children’s book. Muñoz is an engaging new literary voice in marginalisation literature
Adean van Dyk
University of South Africa, School of Arts, Department of Afrikaans and Theory of Literature
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