good - Michael

Juan de Pareja, our narrator, was a slave in the service of the famous Spanish artist, Velasquez. Spanish slavery of the time was evidently quite different from the brutal slavery of the American South, that we are all familiar with. Juan de Pareja was well treated, and indeed, loved by his master and mistress, and he in turn loved them. This fact naturally gives the book an uncomfortable "Uncle Tom" or "Song of the South" flavor to the narration. We modern readers do not really want to hear about slaves loving their owners. However, this novel is based on history. Pareja, Velasquez, and a few other major characters, were all real people. De Trevino has taken the little that is known about them, and used fiction and imagination to fill in the huge gaps in our knowledge. So this is historical fiction - not a biography. But it was fascinating to read in the brief afterward which parts of the story were definitely true.
Juan secretly taught himself to paint, by watching his master for so many years. And a few of Juan de Pareja's paintings survive today and are displayed in museums in Europe. But it was illegal in Spain for a slave to practice the arts. The episode in the story in which both Velasquez and the King of Spain himself discover that the famous artist's slave has been illegally painting is the highlight of the book, and according the the author, this episode is known and based on fact.
Unusual for a middle grade novel in that the narrator, though his story begins in childhood, is an adult through most of the book. Not many books for this age focus the story on adults. ( )

Juan tells the story of being a slave to the artist Diego Velázquez and of developing his own artistic talent. The reader gets to see into the life of the famous painter but also into the life of a slave in 17th century Spain. ( )

Newbery Medal. Gripping biography of de Pareja, slave to Velazquez, who learned from his master and became famous himself. ( )

The slave Juan de Pareja was the subject of a 1650 painting (below) by his master, Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez (who later freed him and made him his assistant). This book is based on their lives - which have little documentation. This makes them great subjects for historical fiction.

Elizabeth Borton de Treviño studied Spanish and writing at Stanford, and later lived in Mexico. In her afterword, she alludes to the racial tension of the 1960s and states that she hopes it will appeal "to young people of both white and Negro races because the story...foreshadows, in the lifetime of the two men, what we hope to achieve a millionfold today. Those two, who began in youth as master and slave, continued as companions in their maturity and ended as equals and friends." I have to wonder if this statement contributed to the book receiving the 1966 Newbery Medal. ( )