A joyful story about standing up for loved ones and the power of community.
A young Latine American girl uses her voice to fight for her community in this children’s picture book.
Belinda, a young Latine girl in Washington, D.C., loves the music of the Latin diaspora, from Dominican bachata to Mexican ranchera. Her aunt Sofía, a second mother to her, was a beloved local singer who has died, and the memory makes Belinda too sad to sing (“When we lost her, I felt like I lost…everything”). Her grandmother lives in a lively community with a mural honoring Sofía, but the local government wants to tear it down to build a new restaurant. Belinda and her family stage a community party as protest, and when a representative of the new restaurant threatens the good time, Belinda realizes the impact her voice can have. This story was written in a collaboration between the publisher and three teen girls (Luisa Orellana-Castillo, Brizel Martinez Cruz, and Camila Melany De la Luz Villegas) at the D.C. Latin American Youth Center. The care they’ve taken with the project is evident in the diversity of the skin tones of the characters, the depictions of intergenerational families, and the appreciations of cultural staples such as food and music. Montero’s vibrant digital illustrations complement the themes of cultural pride and celebration and lend a fanciful quality to the more serious themes of grief and gentrification.
A joyful story about standing up for loved ones and the power of community.Pub Date: Oct. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781950807642
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Shout Mouse Press
Review Posted Online: April 2, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...
Rabe follows a young girl through her first 12 days of kindergarten in this book based on the familiar Christmas carol.
The typical firsts of school are here: riding the bus, making friends, sliding on the playground slide, counting, sorting shapes, laughing at lunch, painting, singing, reading, running, jumping rope, and going on a field trip. While the days are given ordinal numbers, the song skips the cardinal numbers in the verses, and the rhythm is sometimes off: “On the second day of kindergarten / I thought it was so cool / making lots of friends / and riding the bus to my school!” The narrator is a white brunette who wears either a tunic or a dress each day, making her pretty easy to differentiate from her classmates, a nice mix in terms of race; two students even sport glasses. The children in the ink, paint, and collage digital spreads show a variety of emotions, but most are happy to be at school, and the surroundings will be familiar to those who have made an orientation visit to their own schools.
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of Kindergarten (2003), it basically gets the job done. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: June 21, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234834-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Embedded in this heartwarming story of doing the right thing is a deft examination of the pressures of income inequality on...
Continuing from their acclaimed Those Shoes (2007), Boelts and Jones entwine conversations on money, motives, and morality.
This second collaboration between author and illustrator is set within an urban multicultural streetscape, where brown-skinned protagonist Ruben wishes for a bike like his friend Sergio’s. He wishes, but Ruben knows too well the pressure his family feels to prioritize the essentials. While Sergio buys a pack of football cards from Sonny’s Grocery, Ruben must buy the bread his mom wants. A familiar lady drops what Ruben believes to be a $1 bill, but picking it up, to his shock, he discovers $100! Is this Ruben’s chance to get himself the bike of his dreams? In a fateful twist, Ruben loses track of the C-note and is sent into a panic. After finally finding it nestled deep in a backpack pocket, he comes to a sense of moral clarity: “I remember how it was for me when that money that was hers—then mine—was gone.” When he returns the bill to her, the lady offers Ruben her blessing, leaving him with double-dipped emotions, “happy and mixed up, full and empty.” Readers will be pleased that there’s no reward for Ruben’s choice of integrity beyond the priceless love and warmth of a family’s care and pride.
Embedded in this heartwarming story of doing the right thing is a deft examination of the pressures of income inequality on children. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7636-6649-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
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