DESERT SONG

From their desert home under a full moon, a close-knit extended family accompanies the sounds of nighttime creatures with music of their own.

As coyotes howl, cicadas buzz, and barn owls hoot, each family member improvises in harmony. Uncle Eduardo slaps his hands against his knees, sister Esme shakes her maracas, and the young narrator’s grandfather plays el güiro. The narrator and Grandma pluck guitars, Aunt Ofelia plays flute, and the child’s father hums. “When my mother opens her mouth to sing, / a hush falls over the desert.” Kemp’s poetic text conveys the desert sky’s magnificence. The narrator’s father speaks reverently of the heirloom instruments treasured and played by the family: “Your great-great-grandmother’s vihuela and my godmother’s ocarina…remind us that they’re still alive between the notes.” Gutiérrez Hernández's delicately stylized illustrations excel, particularly in the many nighttime spreads. While the family plays, sings, and dances, departed ancestors echo their actions from above, appearing silvery against a dark, velvet-blue sky laced with nightbirds, moths, stars, and the flashing lightning of an approaching storm. As the family retreats to the large porch, their concert ended by the closing curtains of massing clouds, “The rain on our tin roof sounds like applause.” The narrator is brown-skinned, and the family varies in skin tone; the use of Spanish throughout implies that they are of Latine heritage. Publishes simultaneously in Spanish.

Perfectly orchestrated: brava!