SOMETHING SPECIAL FOR ME

The family money jar that paid for A Chair for My Mother is filling up again, and this time it will go for a birthday present for Rosa. "Rosa, you get something real nice," hollers Grandma as the little girl goes off with her Mother—straight to the skate store to buy roller skates like her friends have. The picture of Rosa trying on the spanking white-booted skates is vibrant with pleasure; but just as the skates are about to be wrapped, Rosa decides they "weren't really what I wanted to empty that big jar of money for." The same thing happens with the pink-jacketed dress and blue shoes she tries on at the department store, though you can tell from the picture that she feels pleased and pretty in them, and with the sleeping bag in the sports store. Rosa now fears that she will never find the right present—but after a treat at the Blue Tile Diner, where Mama works, and a wish on a star "that I would know what to wish for, . . . I heard the music." Mama explains that it's an accordion, like "your other grandmother" used to play. "People used to say she could make even the chairs and tables dance." Well, Rosa and readers know right away that this is "exactly" the right present. The music store has a used accordion they can afford; Uncle Sandy offers to pay for lessons; and Rosa's Chagall-like vision of making music while, encircling her, tables, chairs, and little girls dance gaily through the air, is the picture of joy and harmony. The warm intensity of feeling and the juicy expressive colors throughout make every page a gift.