PEDRO, HIS PERRO, AND THE ALPHABET SOMBRERO

Pedro gets a dog (perro) and a hat (sombrero) for his birthday. The dog is fancy, the hat too plain. So the boy and his pooch make alphabetical additions: an avi¢n, a bandera, a cacto, and on up, all with Spanish words. It's an appealing idea as an introduction to language, but there is little rhyme or reason behind the word choices other than the letters they start with. As nonsensical poetry, however, the words roll off the tongue: luna and mariposa, rat¢n and xil¢fono. In Reed's first solo outing (she illustrated Rattlesnake Stew, FSG, 1990), the scenes swarm over the page, in gaudy pastels with Aztec overtones, scrawled on black paper that peeks through the strokes of color. Many of these are sharp and eye-filling, others are abstract—the llave (key) looks more like indigo lava—and so less informative. (glossary) (Picture book. 4-8)