THE SPIDER AND THE FLY by Tony Diterlizzi

Diterlizzi, Tony. The Spider and the Fly. Based on the tale by Mary Howitt. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002. ISBN: 978-0-689-85289-3.

The Spider and the Fly revamps Mary Howitt’s cautionary tale about a soothsaying spider and a sweet, naïve fly by pairing the verse with Tony Diterlizzi’s Caldecott-honored illustrations. At first glance, contemporary book browsers might wonder how a poem written in 1829 (complete with Victorian vernacular) could hold the attention of today’s child reader. However, all dusted off and with a fresh coat of paint, this story proves that some scares are timeless. Diterlizzi’s drawings toe the line between charming and creepy, with an aesthetic nod to old film noir and Edward Gorey. The story itself plays out the melodrama of an unsuspecting damselfly who meets an unfortunate end at the many hands of a scheming spider.

The text rings with the moralizing overtones common to the children’s literature of its era. This is a story with a lesson, particularly for little girls, about the big bad world. Some parents may bristle at the basic plot trajectory – a wide-eyed babe in the woods is taken in, seduced, and murdered by an unctuous older man – but hey, they’re only insects! And as the afterword reminds any disgruntled readers, “What did you expect from a story about a spider and a fly? Happily ever after?” That being said, this book would best be reserved for an elementary school aged reader (the jacket advises 6 and up).

Diterlizzi’s illustrations really do balance out the spookiness and slime with sophisticated fun. The little Fly is all rouged up like a flapper while the Spider smolders like a portly Gomez Addams. The backgrounds of each scene are not to be missed; these pages were designed for lingering. The Spider’s lair is dripping with beautifully gory detail, decorated by a dead ladybug footrest and a coffee table copy of The Joy of Cooking Bugs. Diterlizzi also accomplishes a haunting range of light and shadow using only black, white, and shades of gray.

All in all, this is a lovely book with some serious style. There’s an applicable message about the dangers of sweet-talking strangers, but the illustrations are worth the price of admission alone.

Emily Lohorn

ZIBA CAME ON A BOAT by Liz Lofthouse

Lofthouse, Liz. Ziba Came on a Boat. Illus. Robert Ingpen. La Jolla, Calif.: Kane/Miller Book Publishers, Inc., 2007. ISBN 978-1-933605-52-4. $15.95.

Ziba Came on a Boat is the story of Afghan refugees traveling by sea to an undisclosed host country. The crowded fishing boat surrounded by blue water is the initial and oft repeated full-page image—the constant return to the image throughout crafts the ebb-and-flow feel of the story. The narrative crosscuts from occurrences at sea—waves, calm, storm—that prompt young Ziba’s flashbacks to her mountainous village before and after Taliban rule. The connection between sensory experience and memory is sophisticated and fluid; the text is straightforward and resonant. The reader gets the feel of the monotony and solitude of this type of desperate boat escape—sitting cross-legged, exposed to the elements, surrounded only by family, having fled without belongings. All that remains are memories, good and bad, hope for the future, and dreams of “azadi”—freedom.

As difficult as the underlying subject matter is, this book is a gentle gem, accessible and re-readable. The undercurrent of hope and the security of already having escaped prevent readers from experiencing any anxiety. Ziba’s flashbacks focus on childhood scenes that are universal—reading schoolbooks and helping to set the dinner table—and more culturally-specific, like carrying water jugs back to her mud-brick home. Her snapshot memories translate easily for a young audience, while the background illustrations invite talking opportunities between child and adult readers. While the illustrations of faces tend to be a bit fuzzy (though ethnically specific), the depictions of mountainous Afghanistan are lovely and informative without romanticizing village life. The book is frank but inviting—perfect for readers interested in a multicultural world where children experience political strife.

Chandra Howard

TIME TO PRAY by Maha Addasi

Addasi, Maha. Time to Pray. Illustrated by Ned Gannon. Honesdale, PA: Boyd's Mills Press, 2010. ISBN-13: 978-1590786116. $17.95.

Time to Pray endearingly takes the reader into the personal world of a young Muslim girl and her bond with her grandmother which grows stronger as the girl's sense of spirituality develops. Visiting her grandmother in an undisclosed Middle Eastern country, the girl slowly steps into the world of prayer, one of the five tenets (or pillars) of Islam, and with each step she grows more thoughtful about the meaning behind praying as well as more excited to discover new ways to remember her grandmother. By keeping this in an unnamed country, Addasi allows the reader a chance to feel the threads that weave this spiritual act without any cultural or social influences; it's just a simple story about love and devotion in its many forms and serves as a wonderful introduction to Islam for all readers.

The illustrations, all done in oil, feel as soft and tangible as the sentiments that brew within the story. The rich colors and vibrant expressions are equally nurturing and evocative. The text itself is translated with the English and Arabic side by side. Addasi also includes a an informational page at the end explaining about Islamic prayer and the different times, an added benefit. Overall it's a brief, tranquil look into a different religion but more importantly, into a girl's maturing love and spirituality.

Reviewed by Alya Hameed

I AM DIFFERENT! CAN YOU FIND ME? by Manjula Padmanabhan

Padmanabhan, Manjula. I Am Different! Can You Find Me? Watertown: Charlesbridge, 2011. ISBN: 9781570916403. $7.95

I Am Different! Can You Find Me? is a collaboration with numerous native speakers and language experts covering a breadth of languages from Arabic to Sign Language. Not only is "Can you find me?" written in each language, it is accompanied by a phonetic spelling of the phrase, short facts about the language, and an illustration that has one thing different from everything else. Manjula Padmanabhan has written a book that delights in differences and celebrates the sounds and flavors of different languages and voices.

There were several happy discoveries as I made my way through this book. For example, I was surprised to find out that the Hawaiian language has only twelve letters; at the same time, "'Hiki iā 'oe ke 'ike ia 'u?" was one of the more difficult translations. The musicality of Nhuatl's "Hueli tinechahci?" (Weh-lee tee-netch-ah-see) lingers in my mind. I'll be honest that it was a relief to come across Spanish's "¿Me puedes encontrar?" I'm also glad that there are "cheat sheets" at the end of the book identifying the item that's different in each picture. Overall I did pretty well, but I struggled with the Gullah illustration.

Take your own adventure through I Am Different! Can You Find Me? and find out what language "cheetah," "pajamas," and "shampoo" come from. And I think you'll be surprised to find out where "boondocks," "cooties," and "yo-yo" come from. Finally, give American Sign Language a go and see if you can find more words of your own to sign and say.

Stephanie Ashley

AMAZING ANIMALS: THE REMARKABLE THINGS THAT CREATURES DO by Margriet Ruurs

Ruurs, Margriet. Illus. W. Allan Hancock. Amazing Animals: The Remarkable Things that Creatures Do. New York: Tundra Books, 2011. ISBN:9780887769733. $19.99 

Amazing Animals shares facts and information about members of the animal kingdom. The categories it addresses are Size and Strength, Reproduction, Communication, Homebuilding, Migration and Navigation, Diet, Hunting, and Defense. Margriet Ruurs selected a variety of insects, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and mammals that, when combined with beautiful oil paintings by W. Allan Hancock, encourages readers to pay just a bit more attention to the world around them. Ruurs states that her hope in compiling the book was that “it will urge [readers] to research and explore the animal world for [themselves],” and her careful selection of beautifully illustrated creatures succeeded in piquing my interest.

Here are some of the things I didn’t know:

1. A black ant can carry ten to twenty times its own weight—this would be like a human carrying a horse. Perhaps even more astonishing is the fact that if every insect in the world was weighed all at once on a scale, they would weigh more than all the other animals.

2. A sturgeon can grow over 16 feet long and live over a century.

3. A coconut crab is a land dweller, and it's gigantic—stretching 1½ feet. Not only that, it can open up coconuts with its pincers. Just hearing this made me squirm.

There were many more things I learned (such as that a slug has three noses) that you will enjoy finding out, too. Along the lines of learning, a reading of Amazing Animals provides a bit of a vocabulary review. Fortunately, there is a glossary at the end of the book that helped me remember that “spiracles” are small breathing holes.

Stephanie Ashley

RAIN by Peter Spier

Spier, Peter. Rain. Garden City: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1982. ISBN 0-385-24105-4.

What a gorgeous, sigh-inducing book! Peter Spier’s Rain follows two children on their adventures during a rainy day, starting with them rushing inside when the rain begins and illustrating their day all the way through to bedtime and the next morning.

The brother and sister don galoshes, raincoats, and a giant umbrella and trot off into their neighborhood for a day of exploration in the rain. They stand below overflowing gutters, put their hands under drain pipes, and squish their fingers through the mess in a wet sandbox. They splash through puddles, admire a glistening spider web, and dump a wheelbarrow full of water. During their exploits they encounter numerous animals, from squirrels to cardinals to mice to raccoons. They watch ducks swimming in a rain-drenched pond, they find a cat curled up under a parked truck for shelter from the wet, and they see a neighbor’s dog watching the rain from his doghouse.

Back at home, the siblings remove their wet clothes and pass them into their mother’s waiting hands. After a bath and dry clothes, they play with a block set in the living room while waiting for dinner with their parents. The family dog and cat are always nearby. Nighttime brings sleeping and a clearing sky. Brother and sister awaken to a sun-drenched morning and a backyard alight with water reflecting the sun.

For an adult, this book is a sumptuous trip down memory lane, bringing to mind the simpler days of the early 1980s, when children went outside in the rain and played with blocks instead of video games. For a child, the book is a awash with visual delight and the innocence of childhood. Spier’s illustrations are gorgeous and intricate, with numerous little touches that show dozens of aspects of a life. In the children’s backyard alone, the pages ramble with garden flowers and birds, a sandbox, an errant hose, a woodpile, a playful dog and cat, a full shed, and pet rabbits with their snack of lettuce and carrots. Almost every page is alight with detailed drawings, and in the more simple illustrations, Spier manages to evoke the precise way rain pools on the ground and the way the background of trees and homes turns gray in a deluge. The story is told entirely with pictures, and every detail makes each moment something worth poring over.

In addition to a childlike sense of wonder at a rain-soaked world, Spier’s work elicits moments of vivid childhood memory, like the feeling of standing in a rainy street as water surges past your feet to make its escape down the drain, With moments like that in this book, Spier creates more than a story about two kids playing in the rain; he creates an emotional response to a universal experience.

Jill Coste

MY VERY OWN ROOM by Amanda Irma Perez

Perez, Amanda I. My Very Own Room / Mi Propio Cuartito. Maya Christina Gonzalez. San Francisco, CA: Children’s Book Press, 2000. ISBN # 0-89239-164-2

My Very Own Room / Mi Propio Cuartito is a bilingual picture book. It was originally written in English and translated into Spanish. The story is based on the author’s own experience of growing up in a family of eight. Amanda lives with her parents and her five younger brothers in a small two-bedroom house. She has to share a bedroom with her five brothers, and she really desires a little space of her own. She goes around the house to look for her so-desired space, and when she finally finds a potential place, she asks her mother for her approval. This small space is full of furniture, old clothes, and other family belongings, so a lot of work has to be done in order to turn it into a small bedroom for Amanda. The closeness of the family is evident when everyone gets together to help Amanda accomplish her dream.

The translation of the book is accurate. It is evident that the translator is familiar with Mexican culture, since the words are carefully chosen to represent the same meaning that they have in the original language of the story. Thus, the tone of the story is preserved in the translation. Additionally, there is a balance of languages in the book. Both languages are used equally throughout the story; however, some Spanish words are used in the English version of the story because the author probably couldn’t find words in English that had the same emotional meaning as they do in Spanish. Therefore, a glossary of Spanish terms would be useful for Spanish language learners. In terms of English language learners, the translation of the story can help them keep developing their English language by looking at the Spanish translation of the book whenever they don’t understand words or ideas in the English version of the story. The Spanish embedded words in the English version of the story can also make this book more comprehensible to English language learners.

The content of the story is great; however, it lacks metaphors, similes, rhythm, and alliteration, which would make it a richer piece of writing. Additionally, the names of some of the characters are not mentioned in the story, which can be confusing for language learners. The illustrations are well done; they are very vivid, and they match the text of the story.

This book is appropriate for elementary school students, second and third grade in particular, since the vocabulary used is simple. Furthermore, this book can be used to teach a variety of topics such as differences in culture and immigration. I recommend using this book in the classroom because many students will be able to identify themselves with the main character’s situation, and this will engage students in the lessons.

Reviewed by Yvonne Garcia

This review is part of the Special Section: Books in Spanish, featuring a collaboration with Policy and Language Studies students at San Diego State University. Read more about it here.

FAMILY, FAMILIA by Diane Gonzales Bertrand

Bertrand, Diane Gonzales. Family, Familia. Illustrated by Pauline Rodriguez Howard. Translated by Julia Mercedes Castilla. Houston: Piñata Books, 1999. ISBN #1-55885-269-7. $14.95. Ages 6 and up.

Family, Familia is a bilingual picture book. Daniel Gonzales, the main character in the story, goes to a family reunion in San Antonio, Texas. He expects the reunion to be boring and is not excited to attend. However, he begins to enjoy the reunion and has fun when he starts to make connections between his family and the stories his dad has told him. Daniel finds a boy who is his age and they become friends and find out they are cousins. Daniel goes back home happily, knowing where the Gonzales name comes from.

This story has a very strong message about family unity that children will really love. It promotes multiculturalism in a positive way. Children of Mexican-American backgrounds will be able to easily relate to this story, while children of different backgrounds will get a look into a new culture. The use of descriptive language gives the story a very vivid feel. The illustrations are also very bright and detailed. They support the story’s meaning fully and tell a story even on their own. The use of Spanish that is sprinkled on every page gives the story a more authentic touch. There is no translation for these words, however, which may make it difficult for a non-Spanish speaker to decode. Nevertheless, the book is translated completely from English to Spanish. The translation conveys the story’s meaning perfectly. As Daniel discovers the meaning of family, children will also be compelled to think about where they came from and their own family’s history regardless of their cultural background.

Reviewed by Vicky Zamarripa


This review is part of the Special Section: Books in Spanish, featuring a collaboration with Policy and Language Studies students at San Diego State University. Read more about it here.

LA MARIPOSA by Francisco Jimenez

Jimenez, Francisco. La Mariposa. Illustrated by Simon Silva. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1998. ISBN 0-395-81663-7. $16.00. Ages 6-10.

Useful website:
http://modernlanguages/facultystaff/jimenezhomepage.cfm.

Awards:
Parent’s Choice Recommended Award
America's Commended List
Smithsonian’s Notable Book for Children

This is a contemporary realistic fiction picture book. Although it is listed as fictional, the book is autobiographical because it is based on the author’s life experiences. The purpose of the book is to address the topic of social acceptance as well as the acceptance of changes and adaptation in the midst of challenges.

The story is about a boy, Francisco, entering first grade in a sink-or-swim all-English classroom where he can’t understand anything. From the very beginning, Francisco fixes his attention to a butterfly in a jar. The butterfly’s metamorphosis takes place alongside the changes Francisco experiences. The message is a positive and inspiring one: that one can flourish by embracing change. The main character’s nuclear family is presented as an important factor in his metamorphosis into a bilingual and bicultural human being. The teacher, principal, and classmates are presented in a positive light because in the end, his teacher, Miss Scalapino, helps establish Francisco as an artist by awarding him a first-place ribbon for his drawing of the butterfly. Through the supportive modeling of his parents and brother, Francisco both finds his place and learns to be tolerant and forgiving of a boy who bullies him. The book ends on the positive notes of acceptance and tolerance.

This book is written in English and Spanish; it falls under the category of Literary Bilingualism, as it includes Spanish words which are italicized and a glossary at the end. Although there are only a total of 16 spanish words, they are very impacting because they are used within a sentence, as a bilingual child would do when code switching. Code switching may have been added to make a connection with the reader on a more personal level. It also implies that English language learners assimilate by adapting what they are acquiring to their own background knowledge. This book also supports linguistic transfer skills because it illustrates the idea that Spanish shares some syntax with English.

The target audience of this book is ages 6-10. Teaching examples might include when and what syntactic features transfer and which do not. Reading comprehension skills can be developed by focusing on text features such as italics. The book also uses the butterfly as a metaphor for the changes a young boy experiences through the acquisition of a second language and culture.

This book can also be used in an integrated lesson between Language Arts and Social Science, and Science. It is a perfect read aloud to introduce the life cycle of a butterfly, a lesson on social justice, contributions of different people in the United States, labor laws, and historical Chicano heroes such as Cesar Chavez. I would use this book to make connections for meaningful learning. I would highly recommend this book as it is a powerful resource that can serve many purposes.

Francisco Jimenez is also the author of The Circuit, Breaking Through, and Reaching Out. These books follow the author from grade school to college. Jimenez is also the author of other bilingual books for children, including The Christmas Gift/El Regalo de Navidad.

Reviewed by Silvia Andrado

A MOVIE IN MY PILLOW by Jorge Argueta

Argueta, Jorge. A Movie in My Pillow. Illustrations by Elizabeth Gomez. San Franciso: Children’s Book Press, 2001. ISBN 0-89239-165-0. $16.95. 

More info:
www.elizabethgomezart.com

Awards:
2001 Americas Award for Latin American Literature
Skipping Stones Honor Award for Multicultural Literature
IPPY Award for Multicultural Fiction for Juveniles

A Movie in My Pillow is a picture book of children’s bilingual poetry. It describes the author’s memories of when he left El Salvador as a young boy with his father during its civil war and moved to San Francisco’s Mission District. Jorgito’s movie, or collection of dreams, is recalled in emotional poems about the people and places he left behind, as well the adventures he has discovered in his new city.

The languages included in this book are Spanish and English. It is a translation from Spanish into English. All of the poems are in both English and Spanish and are displayed either side by side or above and below each other on each page. English/Spanish biliterate readers will be able to tell that the book is very well translated and has accurate usage of words. It was translated by the author himself, which means he has the language, regional, and cultural background from his native El Salvador.

The text of each language seems to be equally present on every page and of equal importance in the telling of the story. The font style seems almost childlike and friendly as well as clear. Every word, line, and paragraph is visible among the various illustrations, and they are easy to read on the pages because they are spaced apart and positioned well.

While there is no slang or jargon in this book, but there is some non-standard vocabulary that language learners might not know or recognize. There is no formal glossary within the book, but there are small notes next to and beneath the poems to explain potentially unfamiliar words to readers.

The vibrant paintings on every page really help bring the author’s story to life with bold bright colors covering every inch of the book. Because the drawings are so detailed, they may help readers boost their comprehension of abstract concepts and better explain what it is like to live in two different countries. I did not find any obvious elements of rhyme or rhythm used in the poems, but the author does use repetition, which supports language acquisition.

The writing style of the author is very imaginative and full of emotion. His heartfelt confessions about the things he misses from El Salvador and the joyful confusion he feels in San Francisco will make any reader empathize with being homesick.

The artwork is vivid and makes you feel as though you’re watching Jorgito’s movie with him. Geography, world cuisines, and indigenous languages are just a few of the social studies themes that are present in this wonderful children’s book.

I would use this bilingual book to support language acquisition by reading it first in one language (the child’s primary language), and then in the second language. This gives the student the opportunity to hear both versions and transfer their skills in the second language. Having the dual language text side by side also helps them access the translations more easily.

Some other books by Jorge Argueta include Sopa de Frijoles, Alfredito Flies Home, Moony Luna, La Gallinita En La Cuidad, The Fiesta of the Tortillas, Talking with Mother Earth, Trees Are Hanging from the Sky, Zipitio, and Xochitl and the Flowers. I would without a doubt recommend this book. It would be a great resource to include in a bilingual library collection or for dual language learners. It would especially be of interest to immigrant students or young readers from El Salvador.

Reviewed by Caroline Rubio Jacobs


This review is part of the Special Section: Books in Spanish, featuring a collaboration with Policy and Language Studies students at San Diego State University. Read more about it here.

SUPERCILANTRO GIRL/ LA SUPERNIÑA DEL CILANTRO by Juan Felipe Herrera

Herrera, Juan Felipe. SUPER CILANTRO GIRL/ LA SUPERNIÑA DEL CILANTRO. Illustrated by Honorio Robledo Tapia. Children’s Book Press/ Editorial Libros para Niños, 2003. ISBN# 978-0-892-39187-5. $ 34.54. Ages 6 and up.

SUPER CILANTRO GIRL/ LA SUPERNIÑA DEL CILANTRO is a bilingual picture book written in both English and Spanish. It is about the experiences of living near the U.S./Mexico border towns. Esmeralda SinFronteras, a small girl, is the main character in the story. She lives with her mother and grandmother. Esmeralda’s mother has been delayed at the border in Tijuana, and Esmeralda worries about this. Through her journey we encounter experiences such as feeling different, feeling lonely because her mother is not with her, and how the border is viewed from a child's perspective. Throughout the story Esmeralda is faced with many obstacles (one of them becomes a green giant) that she must overcome. While facing her obstacles we see her transformation into a super heroine.

Written in both the English and Spanish, this bilingual book gives equality to both the English and Spanish languages. The author does differentiate the languages by color -- English is in a yellow text box and Spanish is in green -- which makes it easier for the reader. Also whenever the phrase SUPER CILANTRO GIRL or LA SUPERNIÑA DEL CILANTRO appears, the typography is in green with different fonts and size to emphasis the power of Esmeralda. Some slang is used because it is necessary in the Spanish language and there is no literal translation for English, as is the case with the word “cilantro,” but it does not affect the outcome of the story or the meaning of the text.

This book can be used in social studies to teach lessons about immigration and creating change. Children from other countries may have similar experiences with crossing the border and may be able to make a connection to Esmeralda. Throughout the story the author uses onomatopoeia, rhyme and repetitions to support language acquisition in the text. The illustrations also boost comprehension by depicting concepts which readers might not get from text alone. However, the illustrations of the character’s facial expression in my personal opinion may be scary at the beginning because they are vivid and crude. Creating a heroine for girls is necessary since there are a limited amount of books in which women are depicted as brave and heroic. This is an enjoyable book that can be used as a great read aloud or small group reading for all to enjoy.

Reviewed by Rosa Salgado

This review is part of the Special Section: Books in Spanish, featuring a collaboration with Policy and Language Studies students at San Diego State University. Read more about it here.

CHATO'S KITCHEN by Gary Soto

Soto, Gary. Chato’s Kitchen. Illus. Susan Guevara. New York City: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1995. ISBN 0-399-22658-3. $16.99. Ages 6-11.

This creative tale spun by famous author Gary Soto is a warm, inviting picture book about unlikely friends. Chato is a low-riding cat in “East Los” (East LA) who loves to eat birds. While he is sneaking up on a sparrow, he spots a family of mice moving in next door. He invites them over for dinner, planning to eat them. After much discussion, the mice decide to join Chato for dinner. Much to Chato’s surprise, the family of mice brings a dog with them. Chato is scared of the dog at first, but Mami mouse convinces him that their canine companion is friendly. In the end, the cats, mice, and dog enjoy a delicious meal together.

Chato’s Kitchen is a fictional picture book. It is written in English, but has many Spanish words sprinkled throughout. These italicized words bring the reader’s attention to colloquial Spanish phrases, terminology, and traditional food. They bring a distinctly Latin flavor to the book which allows the reader to enter into Chato’s urban East Los Angeles world. The Spanish words are written in the same font and size as the English words, and they appear in italics in the text. The font size is clear, visible, and legible on every page. The English words are written in academic language, but the Spanish words are Mexican slang intended to draw readers into the main character’s experience as an East Los Angeles cat. The words are inoffensive, and teachers could still use the book for a lesson. If a bilingual teacher felt that any one word would offend a certain population, it would not be difficult for that teacher to simply translate the word to a less offensive English word.

This book has wonderful illustrations. It allows the reader to comprehend the way the barrio looks and helps aid in story comprehension. Drawings are more literal than abstract, and therefore language learners would be able to follow the plot of the story by looking at the pictures. The book does not rhyme, and there is little repetition, but it would be a good study in descriptive language and adjectives. The rich descriptions and adjectives pull the reader into the world that the author intended to expose. The first page of the book contains not only a glossary but also an explanation of the traditional Mexican food that Chato makes for the mice.

The writing is of a thoughtfully calculated and extremely high quality, and the characters are carefully selected to depict interactions between different types of people as represented through cats, dogs, and mice. The plot is one that young readers can understand, and older students can discuss the interactions between different types of people in Los Angeles. Overall, this is a high-quality piece of literature that can introduce students of any ethnic background to a vibrant community much like their own. Social studies themes abound in this book. Teachers could do a lesson on ethnic foods served in the students’ families or a study on different ethnic groups in Los Angeles.

 Gary Soto is a well-known author of books and poems for children and adults. He has won many awards for his various literary works, including being a finalist for the National Book Award, the Bess Hokin Prize and the Levinson Award. In 1999, he received the Literature Award from the Hispanic Heritage Foundation, the Author-Illustrator Civil Rights Award from the National Education Association, and the PEN Center West Book Award for Petty Crimes (www.garysoto.com). This book is part of a series of picture books featuring Chato. The other books are titled Chato and the Party Animals and Chato Goes Cruisin’ (which was voted one of the "Ten best illustrated books” by the New York Times in 2005).

Reviewed by Rachel McLemore


This review is part of the Special Section: Books in Spanish, featuring a collaboration with Policy and Language Studies students at San Diego State University. Read more about it here.

BIBLIO BURRO by Jeanette Winter

Winter, Jeanette. Biblio Burro. New York: Beachlane, 2010. ISBN: 9781416997788. $16.99. Ages 6 and up.

Set deep in the jungles of Colombia, Biblio Burro by Jeanette Winter tells the story of a man who takes his love for books to young children. Luis and his wife Diana live in a small house, and once Luis fills it with books they realize they need to do something with them. "After all," Diana tells Luis, “we can’t eat books with our rice.” Luis thinks and comes up with a perfect plan. With the purchase of two mules, he turns his books into a mobile Biblio Burro (Donkey Library) and sets off through Colombia. Luis, Alfa, and Beto’s journey isn’t always easy: It’s hot, sometimes Beto doesn’t want to keep going, and they are even held up by a bandit looking for money. There are also, though, the children and people at the villages who get to see books for the very first time. They sit and listen in wonder to Luis as he reads the story of The Three Little Pigs. At the end of the story, they happily get to pick out their own books from the library, and, as they head home, Luis, Alfa and Beto set off for the next group of children in the next village.

Biblio Burro is a well-crafted and engaging story about Luis Soriana, the real-life Biblio Burro man. Luis’s mission continues today. As a result of donations, his library has expanded from 70 books to more than 4,800. When it comes to the book itself, I found Biblio Burro both enjoyable and useful. As a tutor for early readers, as well as baby-sitter for my niece, I am always on the look-out for interesting books that cultivate intelligence and imagination. Early elementary students are entertained by Alpha and Beto’s names and might notice that if you “squish them together you get “Alphabet-o!” Similarly, a donkey library will draw chuckles. The reference to The Three Little Pigs provides another opportunity for teachers and parents. Not only is it an excellent time to read the fairy tale, students can create their own little pig masks to wear during story-time.

While the plot-line and word play were too advanced for my three-year-old niece to notice all the subtleties, the illustrations were interesting enough to distract her and lessen tears as she realized Mommy wasn’t going to be back for a while. Rendered in acrylic paint, pen, and ink the illustrations resemble appliqué quilt pieces and are useful to practice picking out colors. Additionally, each scene has at least two butterflies as well as a variety of jungle birds and animals which are excellent for a child to hone his or her counting skills. Beyond all of this, Biblio Burro cultivates an appreciation for books, social consciousness, and initiative worth re-enforcing.

Stephanie Ashley

Review: MIRROR MIRROR by Marilyn Singer

Singer, Marilyn. Mirror Mirror. Illus. Josee Masse. NY: Dutton, 2010. ISBN 0-525-47901-7. $16.99.

These short reversible story poems are intellectual delights: each page’s left side poem is read top to bottom, then is reversed line for line in the right side poem, which, enjoyably, also makes perfect sense as well as a good poem. Word order isn’t changed, only occasional punctuation. Singer’s originals are a model for potential writing sessions in classrooms. Poetry can be fun!

The poems are versions of famous fairy tales, so content like “Rapunzel” and “Snow White” is readily recognizable. On the opposite page are illustrations rich in color and design, also mirroring the poems—the left side illustration matches the left side poem, and the right side painting encapsulates the poem, the story element, in its reverse. Masse juxtaposes the two paintings superbly so they play off each other, as in the Frog Prince and Beauty and the Beast. The sense of design is beautiful.

Alida Allison