My Papi Has a Motorcycle

Starred review from March 11, 2019
When Papi gets home from work in his gray truck, his daughter is ready for their ritual, a nightly motorcycle ride: “I run outside with both of our helmets.” Together, they zip through their California city, passing the market, the church, and murals that show “our history—of citrus groves and the immigrants who worked them.” The landscape is changing: Papi and his fellow carpenters are building new houses where the groves once stood, and the shaved ice shop has gone out of business. Quintero and Peña, the team behind Photographic: The Life of Graciela Iturbide, conjure up the ride’s sights and sounds with sensory immediacy—the girl grasps her father’s sawdusty shirt, sun-bleached pinks and oranges convey the lingering heat of evening, and stray cats run in front of the rumbling bike as neighborhood sounds reach the riders. Fresh graphic novel style art offers all the glory of a ride (“VROOOM”), and speech in balloons is a mix of Spanish and English alongside the English-only text. The love between the girl and her father is palpable, but her connection to her city (fleshed out in an author’s note about Corona, Calif.) is at the story’s heart. Ages 4–8.

Isabel Quintero narrates Daisy Ramona's adventures on her dad's motorcycle as they drive around their hometown of Corna, California. Corna brims with a comforting blend of the pair's favorite community spots and friends, all of which are paired with appropriate sound effects: engines revving, birds chirping, construction workers' hammering and sawing, children laughing, abuelitos' greeting, and a dog barking. All those neighborhood noises could seem chaotic, but the regional Mexican music creates a bright forward-moving pace. Like a raspado on a hot summer day, Quintero's narration hits the spot with the perfect amount of sweetness. Though the audiobook does not include the specificity of the Latinx imagery in the picture book's illustrations, Daisy and her father's day in their beloved hometown is worth a listen. E.A.N. � AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine