Under the Mambo Moon

Starred review from April 18, 2011
In understated verse, a girl named Marisol explores the role that music plays in her Latino community, introducing the people who visit her father's music store ("Papi says you can/ read people's souls/ by the music/ they listen to"). Grainy grayscale scenes inside the store alternate with kinetic acrylic and colored-pencil tableaus, placed opposite the visitors' monologues. Mr. and Mrs. Mayer strike a sinuous tango pose ("our legs/ swivel and/ turn like/ an electric/ taffy pull"), while Liliana, with "thin shoulders slumped/ under the weight of a full backpack," comes alive when salsa dancing with Rubén: "my troubles leave me/ like a flock of twitchy birds/ flying south for the season." A vivid mingling of poetry, narrative, and art. Ages 8â11.

July 1, 2011

Gr 4-7-Celebrating the diversity of Latin American music and dance, the poems in this slim yet richly layered collection present a lyrical narrative told from the perspective of Marisol, who has just celebrated her quinceanera and who is helping her father mind his music store. Readers follow the teen as she greets people and describes their specific musical inclinations with poems that vary in style, tone, and format. The illustrations create a contrast between the characters' "normal" lives and their musical lives. For example, black-and-white pencil drawings introduce the characters through Marisol's voice in simple prose poems. The individuals are described doing ordinary things: shopping, getting off the bus, skateboarding. These pages are followed by cheerful acrylic color illustrations that accompany poems showing Marisol's customers writing songs, playing various instruments, and dancing the mambo and cumbia. Each poem displays a sense of community and celebration. An author's note gives background information about the origins and influences of Latin American music and a glossary offers definitions for the more obscure music and dance terms. A sparkling addition to any library.-Rita Meade, Brooklyn Public Library, NY

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