I Love You, Baby Burrito

author: Angela Dominguez

illustrator: Angela Dominguez

publisher: Roaring Brook Press, 2021

preschool-up (Mexican American)

On the cover, a tightly-swaddled infant, fists slightly emerging, is fast asleep in an oval cradle—resembling a “baby burrito” in a basket.

Next to a birdhouse in the crook of a tree, a protective mamá and papá robin greet their newly hatched nestlings; while inside their home, a mixed couple celebrate the swaddling of their new café-con-leche infant. 

Dominguez’s artwork—using a gentle, pastel palette of watercolor paint and colored pencil combined with digital imaging—lovingly portrays the first few hours in the lives of the young couple together with their beyond adorable bebé.

Throughout, one of the dominant colors is a soft green, which readers will see on the cover and the infant’s cap and blanket, and a toy llama. While most of the English text is set in black type, each larger bolded word and phrase in Spanish, appearing together with an illustration—is highlighted in the same, gentle green, and merges with the other design elements.

As the new parents speculate on their baby’s face, fingers, and toes, Dominguez deftly conveys the meanings of the Spanish words and phrases by her illustrations—“This is your delightful carita, which I think looks a little bit like mine. And these are your precious manitas and deditos…that I could gobble up”—and there’s also a helpful Spanish-English glossary and pronunciation guide on the final pages. 

As their baby awakes and begins to signal distress, one of the parents asks:

Speaking of . . . 

Are you hungry? 

¿Tienes hambre?

I Love You, Baby Burrito is a serene and tranquil portrait of a loving family welcoming their new addition.

*Highly recommended for all home, classroom and library collections.

—Beverly Slapin

(published 7/18/2021)

Stella Díaz Has Something to Say

author: Angela Domínguez

illustrator: Angela Domínguez 

Roaring Brook Press, 2018 

grades 3-5 

Mexican American

Third-grader Estrella (Stella) Díaz has a lot of things to say, especially when she’s talking about her interests, which revolve around marine life. As an emerging bilingual child, she sometimes uses Spanish pronunciation for English words or phrases—or, at times, substitutes similar-sounding words. Stella often gets frustrated, and her feelings of inferiority are compounded each time Jessica, the “mean girl,” makes fun of her. And when she has to read aloud, Stella’s stomach gets tied up in knots and she can barely talk at all.

Once a week, Stella takes “speech” lessons, where she is rebuked for using a Spanish word and is taught “to speak properly. This means how all the letters and words are supposed to sound in English,” she tells the reader. “At least that’s what my speech teacher, Ms. Thompson, says.” 

By emphasizing “properly” here, Stella silently calls out her speech teacher’s loaded judgment. Although Ms. Thompson’s insistence may seem like a small thing, this kind of teaching squelches the self-image and creativity of children who are dual-language learners. 

And when Stella discovers her status as a “legal alien,” she pictures “all these spiny, crawly, deadly aliens, the ones people run away from,” which, of course, makes her feel even more that she doesn’t belong. “I wouldn’t be an alien if I were living in Mexico,” she thinks, “I’d be natural there.” If she becomes a citizen, she asks herself, will she finally feel normal?

Born in Mexico City and raised in Chicago, Stella lives with her awesome mom, an executive at a radio station and dynamite cook besides, who speaks Spanglish at home; and her older brother, funny, good-natured, middle-schooler Nick. Evenings after dinner, the three play card games and sometimes dance to salsa music, which is “different from chips and salsa,” Stella explains. Her parents are divorced, and Stella says that her dad, who lives in Colorado, doesn’t know how to be a dad: he doesn’t keep promises, he’s never around, and he doesn’t send money. 

Stella has a best friend, Jenny, who is Vietnamese American. They like each other, in no small part because, as cultural “outsiders,” they have much to share. In some ways, Jenny, who is bolder than Stella, is her alter-ego; and Stella sometimes imagines—after a particularly embarrassing time being harassed by mean-girl Jessica—going back in a Fantastic Time Machine and telling Jessica off or having Jenny talk for her. 

As Stella navigates third grade—culturally and emotionally supported by her mom and extended family; encouraged in developing her artistic talent by her innovative classroom teacher, and acknowledged by the school librarian, who greets her in Spanish—she succeeds in making friends and becomes “professional” at ignoring bullies, creates her first book and a poster for the third grade spelling bee, and makes it to the semifinals. And, in a costume she’s created and standing in front of her handmade submarine, Stella introduces herself as Jacques Cousteau and makes an amazing class presentation on sea life. 

At the end of the day, Stella says:

I grab my cheeks because my face hurts from smiling so much. I just can’t stop! Not only did I speak out loud in front of the whole class, I did it well. Today, I really lived up to my name. I really was an Estrella.

This warm story of family and community encompasses a variety of cultural markers as well as mostly contextualized Spanish words and phrases. It would have been good, though, had Domínguez chosen not to italicize the Spanish. This style should be used only for emphasis. 

Domínguez’s appealing ink-and-pencil, mostly spot illustrations (and several full-page illustrations as well) provide visual context for youngsters moving from picture book to chapter book, and young readers might also recognize some of them from her previous picture books. In one particularly moving illustration, Stella lies down on her living room rug. Her limbs are spread out and she’s sadly staring into space. She’s emotionally exhausted after yet another day of defending herself from the school bullies. 

Domínguez inserts herself into the story as a children’s book author in a library performance, in which she reads a book she’s written in Spanish and English, and talks about how she dealt with her own language-acquisition challenges—“She read even more and made herself write all the time. Then she decided that’s what she wanted to do when she grew up.” Stella is beyond impressed. “Don’t tell anyone,” she tells her beta fish, Pancho, “but I might want to be an author one day.”

In an Author’s Note that maintains her story’s narrative voice, Domínguez discloses to young readers which parts of Stella Díaz Has Something to Say are based on her own childhood. And she advises them: “Never forget that you’re so much stronger than you realize. You’ll be surprised by what you can accomplish.”

Young readers—especially immigrant children, and those who are struggling with challenges involving language acquisition and fluency and the frustrations of being misunderstood—will easily relate to our young protagonist. So will everyone else. Stella Díaz Has Something to Say is *highly recommended for all home, classroom and library collections.

Addendum / Update: On page 119 of the ARC (proofreader copy), Stella says, “I can feel my heart beating like war drums in my chest.” To many readers, this may seem like an innocuous comment, but to many others, it’s a hurtful stereotype of Native peoples. I want to thank Angela Domínguez and her editing and publishing team for offering to change this line in the second printing and paperback editions of this book. The change will read, “I can feel my heart pounding like drums in my chest.” It’s a quick and easy, but very important, fix. 

—Beverly Slapin

(published 1/6/18; revised for addendum, 1/11/18;
revised for cover update, 1/15/18)

Marta! Big & Small

author: Jen Arena 

illustrator: Angela Domínguez 

Roaring Brook Press 2016 

preschool-grade 2

In this super-sweet Spanish-English picture book of perspectives and opposites, a beyond-adorable little girl—with hair tied back and dressed for action and comfort in a plain white t-shirt, with purple shorts and sneakers and a matching backpack—traverses through a tropical jungle-like scenario, where she is compared to all the creatures she encounters. 

Domínguez’s art, which she begins with pencil sketches on illustration board, on top of which she glues tissue paper and then digitally adds layers of color, are in perfect partnership with the limited text. The book is elegantly designed, with mostly double-page spreads that contain lots of white space.

Rather than the often-used, obnoxiously italicized Spanish words, here the English and Spanish are placed in different fonts that balance each other: the English in an unadorned black sans serif and the Spanish in a playful orange display font. 

The smooth repetition that begins each spread with a particular animal’s perspective of Marta in Spanish, followed by the English (with the adverb “very” inserted between duplicate adjectives, the happy result of which joins the two languages and slows down the reading), is rhythmic and natural—and at the same time, hilariously overdramatic. 

On each double-page spread, Marta and one of her particular characteristics is shown in relationship to a particular animal. On one, for instance, there is a lion roaring, and children will see only the beast’s huge mouth and little Marta, covering her ears. And on four spreads, youngsters will learn that, to a huge snake, Marta could be—(¡Ay, que no!)—“sabrosa. Tasty, very tasty…” But when she outwits the reptile by scampering up a nearby tree, the disappointed snake has to admit that she is “ingeniosa. Clever, very clever.” 

One of the final spreads, in which English predominates, “summarizes” the story in six mini-drawings that show how Marta and each animal are different. Another is a glossary in which the Spanish predominates. It’s headed by, in English, “Marta is” and “Marta meets.” And between these two is a spread in which our young protagonist is at home, in her own little “art studio” of sorts, with all that she needs to create her own story. A butterfly has landed on her finger, and she’s smiling widely.

The balanced mix of Spanish and English here is delightful and unlike many picture books created for young children, Marta! Big & Small contains no explanatory text. It’s a fun read-aloud, perfect for bilingual classrooms of hablantes learning English and English-speakers learning Spanish—or, even better, in an environment where children are encouraged to call out a word or phrase they know or can intuit from the pictures. 

“Marta is una niña…an ordinary girl,” the story begins. And it ends with: “And clever, very clever, like una niña.” Indeed, there is nothing ordinary about this clever story, the art, or the use of language. Marta! Big & Small is *highly recommended for all home, library and classroom collections.

—Beverly Slapin

(published 12/26/17)

Rudas: Niño’s Horrendous Hermanitas

author: Yuyi Morales 

illustrator: Yuyi Morales 

Roaring Brook Press, 2016 

preschool-up 

Mexican

For the most part, adults who are fans of Lucha Libre Mexicana, professional wrestling bouts in which the Técnicos (the good guys) and the Rudos (the bad guys) enact the battles between good and evil, are aware of the political and social realities they signify. Some of it may fly over the heads of children, but Lucha Libre, “el fuego en el cuadrilátero,” remains a pop-culture phenomenon, similar to WWF, in Latino neighborhoods, north and south.

Readers may remember (from Niño Wrestles the World) how our three-year-old, world champion lucha libre Técnicito, decked out in red mask, orange and yellow sneakers, and blue-banded tighty whities, quickly demolishes the nasty Rudos in his little world: “La Momía de Guanajuato” (the Guanajuato mummy, who has been chasing people since 1865), “La Cabeza Olmeca” (the mysterious Olmec Head), “La Llorona” (the shrieking Mexican ghost who abducts children to replace her own), “El Extraterrestre” (who hovers the earth in his flying saucer), and “El Chamuco” (the devil who tempts little kids into doing bad things). Finally, he is challenged by the worst, the loudest, the most dangerous Ruditas of them all: the tag-team “Las Hermanitas,” his twin baby sisters, who have just awoken from their nap! And The Great Niño, employing his masterful brain, rather than his so-so brawn, emerges once again, victorious!

In this, the rematch of all rematches!—defeated, but unwilling to surrender!—Niño’s HORRIFYING, HARROWING, HORRENDOUS HERMANITAS (“Wrestling champions! Lucha Queens!”)—interrupting their brother who has been busy creating a picture book and must now drop everything to don his lucha libre costume—return to take back the title (or something)! But this time, decked out in cute little sparkly onesies with angelic, kewpie-doll expressions, they’ve decided to employ the dirtiest, smelliest, most vicious, rudest tricks that Ruditas can possibly pull off on the other Rudos. De veras, ¡es fuego en el cuadrilátero! Their POOPY BOMB BLOWOUT—“such a rotten move!” quickly sends El Extraterrestre back home! Next, their NAPPY FREEDOM BREAK stuns Cabeza Olmeca! And their next hideous move, TAG TEAM TEETHING, crunches El Chamuco’s tail! After their PAMPERED PLUNDER, in which they steal La Llorona’s baby dolls, Niño pulls the unbelievable LOOK-AND-BOOK DIVERSION (with the book he’s made, aptly entitled RUDAS), but the hermanitas are inconsolable, HORRIBLE losers—until they (with Niño’s allowing it to happen) pull off a SEIZE AND SQUEEZE—and they’ve won (sort of)! The fight is over! Will Niño demand another rematch?

In her hilarious and beautifully crafted picture book, Morales digitally collaged her artwork, loading each double-page spread with bright, bold acrylic paint rolled on paper and textured with handmade stamps and salt on watered acrylic (to create the rock-like texture for la Cabeza Olmeca). She also painted the black lines of the characters with ink and brush and used crayons in a few places. The ample white background highlights brilliantly arranged bold font styles and speech bubbles (for comic-book sound effects), and multicolored stars, zigzags and other shapes—and title cards that mimic the expressive and fun Mexican Lucha Libre posters. 

Youngest children, turning the pages and listening to creative readers, will see and hear the lucha libre announcers shouting their over-the-top superlatives: “The time has come to welcome the PHENOMENAL, SPECTACULAR, LEGENDARY (TWO) OF A KIND…”

In Rudas: Niño’s Horrendous Hermanitas, as well as Niño Wrestles the World and all of Morales’s other stories, she makes sure to depict the racial mixture, even within families, that shows the kind of diversity found all over Latin America. In both titles, one of the hermanitas is dark-complected, one is light, and Niño is kind of in the middle. And master storyteller that she is, Morales seamlessly incorporates Spanish words and phrases into the sparse English text without interrupting the story by translating them, so young hablantes and English-speakers can enjoy the action together. (Readers can peek at the translations and small illustrations on the endpapers.)

Rudas: Niño’s Horrendous Hermanitas, like its predecessor, Niño Wrestles the World, is silly and great fun. 

*Highly recommended for all home, library and classroom collections.

—Beverly Slapin

(published 9/24/17; revised paragraph describing art 9/25/17)

Little Night / Nochecita

author: Yuyi Morales
illustrator: Yuyi Morales
translator: Yuyi Morales
Roaring Brook Press
2016
preschool-up 
Mestizo, Mexican

In this beautiful inverted go-to-bed story, full of magical realism and lots of love, Mamá Cielo (Mother Sky) convinces her young daughter, Nochecita (Little Night) to come out and darken the sky so that everyone can sleep. While Morales portrays Mamá Cielo as a beautiful, zaftig Mestiza with long braids flying, Nochecita is a chubby baby girl with glowing, dark, dark skin, happy and mischievous and adorable and well-loved. She is, after all, the night, so how could she be anything but dark?

This was Morales’s intention, she told me: to acknowledge and honor the beauty of brown skin by having a child represent the night. As such, while Little Night / Nochecita has the energy of a bedtime story, it’s as calming as the relationship between a loving mother and her child. And, as Morales told me, it celebrates her memories of her mother’s getting her and her sisters ready for bed, and how her sisters would run and hide in order to avoid going to sleep. 

Here, it’s time to come out—rather than time to go to bed—and Nochecita’s running around, one more time, trying to avoid darkening the sky because playing hide and seek is the fun thing to do. While Morales plays with this cosmic idea, Nochecita peeks from behind the hills, disappears into a bat cave, jumps into a rabbit hole, blends with the stripes of bees, vanishes into a blueberry field, and goes anywhere dark, as dark as she is. 

Morales produced her acrylic art on paper with very light brush strokes, thinly layered and without mixing of any of the colors. By drying each layer with a hair dryer before adding another, she told me, she was able to form her colors by creating a myriad of layers. The result is a richly dark palette—of mostly twilight colors of reds and pinks, blues and purples, with brown tones representing the Earth and, of course, Nochecita and Mamá—that literally glows, with the depth of the shine depending on the depth of the dark. And, as young readers turn the full-bleed spreads, they see the images and colors of the afternoon becoming night. 

Both Spanish and English are poetry, and neither is an exact translation of the other. They both hold the metaphors of the language and beautifully complement the artwork. For instance, as Mamá pours stars from the Milky Way from an enormous clay jug into a tiny cup for Nochecita, the English reads:

“I found you. I found my Little Night.” Creamy mustache, lips lick, stars dripping from the Milky Way to drink.

And the Spanish reads:

—Te encontré, encontré a mi Nochecita. Bigotes cremosos, labios relamidos, la Vía Láctea gotea sabrosas estrellas de leche para beber.

Finally, as the sun is setting and the last peekaboo for this day has occurred, Nochecita has quit her hiding game. She’s taken her bath in a tub of falling stars, she’s wearing her nightdress crocheted from clouds, she’s had her nighttime snack from the Milky Way, and she’s allowed Mamá to comb her hair with her braids kept in place by three hairpins—Venus está al Este, Mercurio, al Oeste, y Júpiter, arriba. And as the little children for whom this story was made are in bed, getting sleepy, Nochecita is taking her moon ball and bouncing it high into the air.

On every page, with every word, darkness is beauty and joy. Little Night / Nochecita—a loving, life-affirming story that celebrates children who see themselves in this little girl—is highly, highly recommended.

—Beverly Slapin

(published 9/22/17)

Niño Wrestles the World

author: Yuyi Morales

illustrator: Yuyi Morales

Roaring Brook Press, 2013

preschool-up 

Mexican

Anyone who has seen, and therefore viscerally participated in, a Lucha Libre Mexicana, knows that the luchadores are more than “just” performance wrestlers, competing for trophies and money. As they enact the battles between good and evil, the audience is well aware of the political and social realities that the performances signify.

Sometimes, these confrontations are real, and the luchadores themselves organize their communities, fighting for social justice rather than trophies. In the amazing documentary, “Super Amigos” (2007), for instance, five mask- and costume-wearing luchadores are actually anonymous grassroots superheroes, who organize in the streets of Mexico City. And their battles—“Super Barrio” v. “El Casero Collero,” “Super Gay” v. “Homofobía,” “Super Animal” v. “El Matador,” “Ecologista Universal,” v. “Depredador,” and “Fray Tormenta” v. “Misería”—sometimes seem to be never-ending.

In Yuyi Morales’ beautifully crafted little picture book, we meet Niño, the three-year-old luchador who wears a red mask, orange and yellow sneakers, and blue-banded tighty-whities. No opponent is a challenge for our young hero’s skills, as he quickly demolishes the competition, the “rudos” of his little world. They are: “La Momía de Guanajuato” (the Guanajuato mummy, who has been chasing people since 1865), “La Cabeza Olmeca” (the mysterious Olmec Head), “La Llorona” (the Mexican ghost who abducts children to replace her own), “El Extraterrestre” (who hovers the earth in his flying saucer), and “El Chamuco” (the devil who tempts little kids into doing bad things).

Rather than using violence to defeat the “rudos,” our smiling little hero uses the “weapons” of his childhood: his skill at tickling, a jigsaw puzzle challenge, a doll decoy, a game of marbles, and scooters, Lego pieces, and a melting popsicle.

Pero, finalmente—¡aye, que no!—Niño is challenged by the worst, the most dangerous rudas of them all: “Las Hermanitas,” his twin baby sisters, who have awakened from their naps. Will they be the ones to defeat the great Niño? Will they render our champion luchador powerless? O, ¿tendrá una idea nueva?

Using the technique of digital collage, Morales loads each double-page spread with bright, bold watercolors, inks, block prints, and even salt; and announces each of Niño’s foes with typeface reminiscent of exciting Mexican Lucha Libre posters. Plus, Niño’s moves—“FWAP!” “SLISH!” “BLOOP!” “WHUNK!”—virtually leap off the page. As in her other picture books, there are details here that fans will notice—such as the image on the jigsaw puzzle cover: it’s from her book, Just a Minute.

Finally, master storyteller that she is, Morales seamlessly incorporates Spanish words and phrases into the sparse English text without the need to translate them, so young hablantes and English-speakers can enjoy the story—and action—together.

Last year, I had the good fortune to attend a reading of Niño, during which Morales held a large group of mostly preschoolers both mesmerized and cheering. She’s an international treasure, and Niño Wrestles the World is irresistible. Highly recommended.

—Beverly Slapin
(published 12/26/14)

Just in Case: A Trickster Tale and Spanish Alphabet Book

author: Yuyi Morales

illustrator: Yuyi Morales 

Roaring Brook Press, 2008

preschool-up 

Mexican

Just in case young readers may have forgotten from Morales’ earlier book, Just a Minute: Señor Calavera, the dapper-yet-befuddled, bicycle-riding Mr. Death—who couldn’t quite figure out whether or not the elderly Grandma Beetle was really his friend—has indeed been invited to her birthday party.

The day has arrived, and now his friend Zelmiro the Ghost reminds Señor Calavera to get Grandma Beetle a present. His advice: “The best present to give a friend is the thing she would love the most.” As Señor Calavera frantically searches through the Spanish alphabet and collects gifts—un Acordéon (“an accordion for her to dance to”), Bigotes (“a mustache because she had none”), un Chiflido (“a whistle he trapped in a bag”)—Zelmiro counsels his friend to look again, “just in case…”

As with Just a Minute, Pura Belpré Award-winner Morales’ luminous jewel-toned spreads, in acrylics and mixed media on paper, are filled with action and perfectly capture both the whimsy of the Mexican cultural icons and the rollicking humor in the story. Here is “una Historieta, a one-of-a-kind comic book” that contains a scene from Just a Minute. Here are “Quince años, fifteen more years of life,” illustrated by a lovely quinceanera on a cake. Here are “Cosquillas, tickles to make her laugh”—in a brightly decorated box.

But when Señor Calavera loses control of his bicycle (on the hill where Zelmiro had been buried and where he is now planting flowers) and all the presents are ruined, he quickly has to figure out what Grandma Beetle really would love the most. “Perhaps? Maybe? ¡Quizás!” Of course!

Youngest listeners and readers will appreciate the predictable-for-some, surprising-for-others, and totally heartwarming ending. They will want to hear Just in Case, which complements the celebrations of el Día de los Muertos, over and over. Yuyi Morales is a treasure, and Just in Case is highly recommended.

—Beverly Slapin
(published 7/6/14)