Josh Anthony, CLAS grad student affiliate and PhD candidate in History, participated in the making of a children’s book about the Aztecs. We talked to him about this exciting project. Keep reading to find out about Josh’s experience.
Please give us some basic details about the book.
The book is called The Aztecs: The Rise and Fall of a Mighty Empire, and it's middle-grade kids' book (so 9-12 years old) about the people of the Aztec Empire. It's published by the publishing company DK (owned by Penguin Random House), and they focus on producing high quality visual non-fiction books, for kids and adults. This book is part of the of DK Ancient Histories Series, which also includes Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, and Ancient Egypt.
What was your role in the making of the book?
I served as one of two "Expert Consultants" for this book, advising the authors and illustrators. I helped them plan the organization of the book and the topics it discussed, provided them with sources to reproduce, and reviewed the text and images for accuracy. DK was very invested in showing their readers how the Aztecs saw themselves, and looked to me to help them avoid the harmful tropes about the Aztecs that are still so common. I'm especially proud of the final couple of pages, which I worked on pretty closely, which discuss the persistence of Nahua culture in Mexico after the fall of the Aztec Empire. DK really liked the idea that even though the Aztec Empire fell, its people survived and continue to survive, and I'm thankful they were interested in talking about the present even in a book in an ancient history series.
Can you describe some of the challenges and joys you experienced during this process?
It was definitely a challenge packaging this history in a way that is both accessible and age-appropriate for middle-grade readers, but it was also a lot of fun. Talking about religion, sacrifice, and warfare especially required a lot of back-and-forth between the authors and myself, and it was a great learning experience for me to engage in this kind of public-facing history. I also got to think a lot about questions that don't make it into most academic works, like "what kind of makeup did people in the Aztec Empire wear?" and "how did people in the Aztec Empire brush their teeth?". Working with the illustrators and the design team was also a great experience. The maps are all excellent, their diagram of the Templo Mayor is wonderful, and the portrayals of the New Fire Ceremony and the ballgame are both really stunning. Even for adults, I think this will be fun to look through!
This book is relevant to audiences in Latin America. Is it going to be available in other languages?
Yes, a Spanish translation will come in September 2026.
Josh is currently the Richard S. Dunn Dissertation Fellow at the McNeil Center for Early American Studies (University of Pennsylvania) and plans to defend his dissertation, “Amaquemecan's Royal Relations: An Indigenous Family History of the Spanish Conquest of the Aztec Empire,” in the summer, 2026. He is also the co-editor, with Camilla Townsend, of After the Broken Spears: The Nahuas in the Wake of Conquest, recently published by Oxford University Press.