Che Handbook

School Library Journal

Adult/High School

This small, chunky coffee-table book is a photo biography of the charismatic revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara. End sheets provide a time line of highlights in his life from birth in 1928 to the 1997 transfer of his remains to Santa Clara, Cuba. More than 100 of the subject's quotations are sprinkled throughout, providing Che's opinions on such topics as truth, moral incentives, love, and youth. Previously unpublished interviews with the subject's friends and political allies provide some depth. The interview with Albert Ganado, motorcycle travel companion of his youth, gives a glimpse into Che the friend. Interviews with Colonel Alberto Castellanos and Colonel Oscar Fernandez Mel give pictures of the Cuban revolutionary. The interview with Ulises Estrado Lescaille covers the era of the man as international freedom fighter. The last chapter, "Legend," includes many paintings, posters, and even products, including cigarettes, wine, tote bags, and the ubiquitous T-shirts. The man who said "The people's heroes cannot be separated from the people, cannot be elevated onto a pedestal, into something alien to the lives of that people..." is ironically very much an icon on a pedestal. While Handbook only reinforces that notion, it may be just this angle that draws adolescents to the book.-Paula Dacker, Charter Oak High School, CA