A tenderly triumphant tale of overcoming language barriers.
A young Latine boy struggles to speak Spanish with his grandmother.
Every Sunday, Max helps Abuela bake. His grandmother speaks only Spanish, but they communicate through the sweet treats they whip up: polvorones, cocadas, and tres leches. Plus, they have help from Abuela’s bilingual parrot, Lorito, who squawks reminders about what ingredients they need ("Arroz," "Leche"). Max knows he should try harder to speak Spanish, but his cousins make fun of him, which makes him self-conscious. “My Rs won’t roll. My words knot in my throat,” Max says. One Sunday, Lorito is at church (he likes to perch nearby and sing along to hymns), so Max and Abuela are on their own. Max confronts his fears and attempts to speak Spanish as they prepare arroz con leche—rice pudding—for a competition at the county fair. This time, he bridges the gap and bonds with Abuela in a new way: “My words tumble out dry and rusty, but I don’t mind anymore.” Galotta’s watercolor illustrations are warm and inviting, especially the depictions of Lorito, who’s by turn wise and endearing. With its effective use of figurative language, Aldeman’s matter-of-factly reassuring text will especially resonate with bilingual children feeling intimidated speaking their non-native tongue.
A tenderly triumphant tale of overcoming language barriers. (author’s note, glossary, recipe for Lorito’s arroz con leche) (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2024
ISBN: 9781623543921
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2024
Hee haw.
The print version of a knee-slapping cumulative ditty.
In the song, Smith meets a donkey on the road. It is three-legged, and so a “wonky donkey” that, on further examination, has but one eye and so is a “winky wonky donkey” with a taste for country music and therefore a “honky-tonky winky wonky donkey,” and so on to a final characterization as a “spunky hanky-panky cranky stinky-dinky lanky honky-tonky winky wonky donkey.” A free musical recording (of this version, anyway—the author’s website hints at an adults-only version of the song) is available from the publisher and elsewhere online. Even though the book has no included soundtrack, the sly, high-spirited, eye patch–sporting donkey that grins, winks, farts, and clumps its way through the song on a prosthetic metal hoof in Cowley’s informal watercolors supplies comical visual flourishes for the silly wordplay. Look for ready guffaws from young audiences, whether read or sung, though those attuned to disability stereotypes may find themselves wincing instead or as well.
Hee haw. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: May 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-545-26124-1
Page Count: 26
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A retro-futuristic romp, literally and figuratively screwy.
Robo-parents Diode and Lugnut present daughter Cathode with a new little brother—who requires, unfortunately, some assembly.
Arriving in pieces from some mechanistic version of Ikea, little Flange turns out to be a cute but complicated tyke who immediately falls apart…and then rockets uncontrollably about the room after an overconfident uncle tinkers with his basic design. As a squad of helpline techies and bevies of neighbors bearing sludge cake and like treats roll in, the cluttered and increasingly crowded scene deteriorates into madcap chaos—until at last Cath, with help from Roomba-like robodog Sprocket, stages an intervention by whisking the hapless new arrival off to a backyard workshop for a proper assembly and software update. “You’re such a good big sister!” warbles her frazzled mom. Wiesner’s robots display his characteristic clean lines and even hues but endearingly look like vaguely anthropomorphic piles of random jet-engine parts and old vacuum cleaners loosely connected by joints of armored cable. They roll hither and thither through neatly squared-off panels and pages in infectiously comical dismay. Even the end’s domestic tranquility lasts only until Cathode spots the little box buried in the bigger one’s packing material: “TWINS!” (This book was reviewed digitally with 9-by-22-inch double-page spreads viewed at 52% of actual size.)
A retro-futuristic romp, literally and figuratively screwy. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-544-98731-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: June 2, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2020
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