LUPE LOPEZ

A future rock star will not be silenced.

Brown-skinned Latina Lupe Lopez isn’t just ready to go to kindergarten—she’s ready to be the star of kindergarten. Armed with “drumsticks” (really pencils), she marches into the classroom intent on making a splash, until Ms. Quintanilla tells her that school has rules. Instead of gaining instant celebrity, Lupe becomes the first kid in kindergarten to get in trouble. Not to be deterred, however, she forges ahead with her own rock-star rules, like making noise at lunch with makeshift drums and starting an after-school fan club for herself…whose first meeting nobody attends. Dejected, Lupe spends the second day of kindergarten feeling miserable in her ordinariness until she finds a happy medium. Spanish-inflected onomatopoeia describing drumbeats jumps out of the text and makes a bold statement, just like Lupe herself. The mostly light brown–skinned students and adults are authentic to the book’s Texas setting, and Spanish words are scattered throughout. Charlton-Trujillo and Miller’s narrative always respects Lupe’s personality, never making her a joke. Cepeda’s full-bleed spreads are immersive and inviting, while cut-out illustrations surrounded by white space convey the sense of isolation Lupe feels when she is made to tone down her antics. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

An instructive story about balancing big dreams with real life, with a charming heroine to root for.