A long picture book for grade school readers with appealing illustrations, a diverse cast and a solid introduction to salsa.
Hickman introduces Roscoe Alfonso Leonidas Washington III and his multigenerational family of salsa dancers in the third book of a series, amusingly illustrated by Rousseau.
Young Roscoe isn’t particularly interested in salsa dancing. His grandparents salsa dance. His parents salsa dance. And despite how much they love dancing, when they ask Roscoe if he wants to learn to salsa dance, “it reminds me of the times my mom told me to eat my peas.” But as they keep giving him advice, he decides he’d rather learn to dance than disappoint his family. Roscoe starts dancing everywhere—in his room, on the football field, in front of the mirror—until he can really imagine himself as a salsa dancer. But despite his growing comfort, he still has to learn. Luckily, his friend Sara has a plan: They’ll take the 60-minute salsa dancing class together. “This is absurd, ridiculous learning how to salsa dance in 60 minutes,” Roscoe says, but Sara is convinced they should give it a try. In the remainder of the oversized picture book—alternating between sometimes-lengthy text and cartoonish full-color illustrations depicting Roscoe’s facial expressions and family members in hilarious detail—Roscoe and Sara go through instructions on how to salsa. While the book wouldn’t actually teach anyone to dance, it’s believable that Roscoe and Sara are able to pick up the basics in a one-hour lesson, which gives Roscoe the confidence he needs to dance in a competition with his family. The cast in the illustrations is wonderfully diverse, and salsa dancing is never presented as something that’s strange for a boy to learn, which might encourage young male readers to branch out into a new athletic activity. The text sometimes has a stilted flow, and the dialogue doesn’t always ring true, but Roscoe’s journey from disinterest to dancing champ is believable, and the illustrations help make him a sympathetic hero.
A long picture book for grade school readers with appealing illustrations, a diverse cast and a solid introduction to salsa.Pub Date: July 15, 2013
ISBN: 978-1481809078
Page Count: 66
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Dec. 26, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.
The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.
When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.
A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.
Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche’s drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest’s many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: March 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-12320-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
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