The Chocolate Tree: A Mayan Folktale

by Linda Lowery, Janice Lee Porter (Illustrator), Richard Keep

The god Kukulkan decides to give the Mayan people the gift of chocolate, the favorite food of the gods, but when Kukulkan 's brother Night Jaguar tells the other gods what he has done Kukulkan is banned from paradise forever.

Genres: Childrens, Fiction, Ancient History, Picture Books, Folk Tales

48 pages, Library Binding

First published January 1, 2008

Reviews

[Lisa the Librarian]

I read this to the second grade classes as part of my all chocolate read aloud theme. This is a great myth/folklore tale from the Mayan culture. Chocolate was introduced to the world when the Spanish Conquistadors brought the beans from the cacao tree back from visits to the Mayan and Aztec people.

An interesting tale of how the Mayan king/god Kululkan (cool-cool-KAHN) defied the other gods and brought chocolate to the earth because of his great love for the Mayan people.

I loved having a different genre of chocolate book to read to the students. We've done a few fiction stories and a non-fiction book on chocolate growing/processing. A book of chocolate folklore was a real find!

In addition to the informative story the art work is pretty and really evokes a mood of gods, paradise and miraculous gifts.

[Sheila]

This is a lovely Mayan Folktale, telling a story of how chocolate came to be on the earth, as a gift to the Mayans from Kukulkan. The author admits this story and tale, and the story of Kukulkan, is told in different ways in different communites, from the Maya to the Aztecs to the Toltecs. This telling is just one version. Yet being set at Chichen Itza, this was the perfect version for reading to my daughter on the day after we visited Chichen Itza ourselves. Plus, how can you not like a story that is about chocolate!

[Milena]

I love stories that make a great job relating us to what we eat. This is a very nice story about the mythical origin of chocolatl and how sacred it is for the Mayan people. The illustrations are so beautiful and the ending is lovely but I really don't like stories where there is an evil character with animal name, because from my point of view it gives the animal bad reputation, etc. This is the case of the Jaguar in the Chocolate tree story.

[Margaret Gerberding]

A Mayan folktale about how a God gave the world chocolate! My whole family liked this one.

[Breanna Maughan]

I think the pictures are cool and show how the Mayans would draw.

[Anjalica]

Very cute story. I really enjoyed it. Love the chocolate.

[Sara G]

Excellent ESL teaching resource.

[Kelly Chester]

Super cute book

[Adrianne]

Absolutely beautiful contemporary illustrations!

[Rachael]

I used this with my class as a text to help them create their own folktales. They were very engaged by the colourful pictures and they enjoyed the story. The jungle setting really captured their imagination, which helped their writing and it was also a nice way of introducing the Mayans as our term topic.

[Flor Vita]

La historia en general me gusto, pero siento que en las partes en las que el narrador trata de interactar con el lector rompe el flujo de la historia. En cuanto a las ilustraciones el diseño te introduce muy bien en el cuento.

[Regina]

This was probably my favorite folktale this year, how we got seasons, storms, animals, etc are all okay, but I love the story of how we got chocolate 🤩

[Michelle Rudon]

I can't even read this book this site sucks as hell. I really need to read it for a test tomorrow.😈