TRICYCLE

A discussion-starter if ever there was one, this brief episode contrasts wealth and poverty in an unnamed Latin American country. Young Margarita, the narrator, likes climbing the tree in her yard to peer over the high hedges. In one direction, she can see the gardener at work, and in the other, the three children and their mother who live in a shanty next door. One day, she spots the children surreptitiously pulling her tricycle through the hedge and hiding it—but rather than raise the alarm, she concocts a wild story for her mother, and declares that she doesn’t need a trike anymore anyway. Amado puts plenty between the lines here, and Ruano does likewise in his neatly drawn scenes of green-lawn prosperity next to bare dirt and cast-off furniture—even adding a plainly symbolic volcano on the horizon. Economic extremes may not be so side-by-side visible in the U.S., but they certainly exist, and children on both sides of the metaphorical hedge would benefit from this invitation to think about that. (Picture book. 6-9)