‘Beautiful Lady’ orders a church

Noted author and literacy advocate Pat Mora is the author of the newly published children’s book “The Beautiful Lady — Our Lady of Guadalupe.”

It is a retelling of the story of the best-known manifestation of the Virgin Mary in the Americas. Juan Diego, a 16th-century Aztec villager, had a vision of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe on Tepeyac Hill, near what is now Mexico City. After repeated attempts, Diego finally convinces the bishop that she said for him to build a church for her on the hilltop. The story in the book is told by the character of present-day Grandma Lupita to her granddaughter, Rose, and Rose’s friend, Terry.

Steve Johnson and Lou Fancher, illustrated the book. For more information about the author, visit www.patmora.com.

IN SANTA FE, ALBUQUERQUE: Alisa Valdes talks about her new book “The Feminist and the Cowboy: An Unlikely Love Story” at 6 p.m. on Monday, Jan. 14 at Collected Works, 202 Galisteo, Santa Fe, and at 7 p.m. on Jan. 15 at Bookworks, 4022 Rio Grande NW. The book is about the author meeting and falling in love with a cowboy whose conservative views represent the antithesis of what Valdes had learned from her “hippie, academic Marxist parents.”

AT PAGE ONE: Stewart S. Warren is the featured poet at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 8 Poetry Night at the bookstore, 11018 Montgomery NE.

NEW BOOKS: A number of books by New Mexican authors, or books about New Mexico, were published in 2012 that bear mention. These are among the titles:

New Mexico naturalist Stephen J. Bodio is the author of “The Eternity of Eagles, The Human History of the Most Fascinating Bird in the World.” Bodio, who has a background in literature and zoology, has kept eagles and has ridden with Kazakh horsemen of Central Asia who maintain the ancient tradition of eagle falconry to hunt wolves. Bodio writes that eagles are “still killed by the Pueblos … but make no doubt about the reverence they have for eagles …”

The book quotes a letter that Benjamin Franklin sent to his daughter in 1784 in which he bemoaned the decision to name the bald eagle as the nation’s official bird symbol. “He is a bird of bad moral character. He does not get his living honestly,” according to an excerpt from Franklin’s letter that Bodio quotes.

In the introduction, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Annie Proulx writes that “Bodio’s beautifully written and authoritative book ‘Eagles’ is a primary source of information as well as an omnium gatherum from literature, film and mythology concerning these large, striking birds.”

♦ Lowell Christensen of White Rock is the author of “The One-Minute Zillionaire,” a new humor book about success. In a press release, Christensen writes that he hopes his advice about “how success requires quite a bit of formal and practical education, hard work, and falling on your face a few times” will resonate with readers. For more information about the book, visit www.TheOneMinuteZillionaire.com.

♦ Jeffrey David Reynolds, an attorney, is the author of “Justice Betrayed, A Novel.” Set in “the cities and courthouses, the mesas, mountains and high desert plains of New Mexico,” the story has several threads — two judges, a jury deliberating on the death penalty and political corruption.