Bravo! Poems About Amazing Latinos

Reviewed by: Jill O'Connor - Harriet Beecher Stowe Elementary School, Brunswick, Southern Maine Library District

Review Date: March 8, 2018

Review

Engle and Lopez team up once again (Drum Dream Girl 2015) to create a beautiful, necessary book highlighting amazing Latinos and their contributions to the world. As Engle says, these Hispanic people are not the most famous nor were all of their contributions flashy or Earth-shattering, but each person followed a passion and strove to make her or his corner of the world better. Ranging across professionals and fields, and time periods, people from countries like Cuba, Mexico, and El Salvador, and the US territory Puerto Rico are honored here with Engle's simple, lyrical poems and Lopez's bright, bold llustrations. The poems offer snippets of story from the person's life and Lopez adds a moving portrait. Then, in the back matter, additional biographical information about each person rounds out the message that there are many strong, creative, persistant, innovative Hispanics who have been largely forgotten or left out of history books. This luminous book is a step in the right direction to correct this omittance. The biggest critique is that it is too brief.

Overall Book Score: excellent