All the way to Havana / Margarita Engle ; illustrated by Mike Curato.
Material type:
Item type | Current location | Call number | Status | Date due | Barcode |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
CML Juvenile Fiction | University of Texas At Tyler CML Juvenile Fiction Area | E583ha (Browse shelf) | Available | 0000002248300 |
A boy helps his father keep their very old car running as they make a trip to Havana for his newborn cousin's zero-year birthday. Includes author's note about cars in Cuba.
AD890L Lexile.
Américas Award honorable mention, 2018
Reviews provided by Syndetics
School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 2-Accompanied by the vibrant onomatopoeia of an old rebuilt car, a brown-skinned boy travels with his family from their village in Cuba to the capital city, Havana, to celebrate the "zero-year birthday" of his cousin. The focus of this colorful picture book is on the car (nicknamed "Cara Cara"), one of Cuba's many mid-20th-century American vehicles maintained through constant tinkering. "Ours is so tired that she just chatters like a busy chicken-cara cara, cara cara, cluck, cluck, cluck." Award-winning poet Engle transports readers to Cuba through her lively verse, and Curato (author/illustrator of the "Little Elliot" series) does the same with his nearly photorealistic illustrations rendered in pencil, with digital color bringing out the bright tones of the tropics. Each spread includes endless detail, from the clothes hanging on the clothesline in the boy's backyard to Havana's beautiful architecture. The stars of the book, of course, are the 1950s cars, which Curato studied on a research trip to Cuba and depicts precisely in all their mixed-and-matched glory. While younger readers will simply enjoy the journey, older children may desire more information about the context of the story, some of which can be found in the author's and illustrator's notes. VERDICT A fun addition to the ever-popular genre of transportation picture books-this one with a unique perspective and message of perseverance.-Clara Hendricks, Cambridge Public Library, MA © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.Author notes provided by Syndetics
Margarita Engle is a Cuban-American poet and novelist. Her books include The Wild Book, Tropical Secrets, The Firefly Letters, The Lightning Dreamer, When You Wander, Mountain Dog, and Silver People. She has received several awards including the Jane Addams Children's Book Award, the Pura Belpré Award, the Américas Award, and the Claudia Lewis Poetry Award for The Surrender Tree and the Pura Belpré Award and the Américas Award for The Poet Slave of Cuba.(Bowker Author Biography)
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