
The inclusion of instructions to make one’s own homemade güiro is a thoughtful addition. Undoubtedly these will help teachers, librarians, and parents to develop Puerto Rican cultural programs, curriculum, or home activities to extend young readers’ learning. Informational backmatter and author’s sources are extensive. In each instance, their shared joy for music and dance ultimately shines through any upsets-a valuable reflection of unity. For example, in one chapter Rafi finds out that he attracts a larger audience playing his homemade güiro with Rosi’s help even though he initially excluded her: “Big brothers only.” Even when he makes mistakes, as the older brother, Rafi consoles Rosi when she is embarrassed or angry at him. The stories focus on Rafi and Rosi’s relationship within a musical context. A glossary at the beginning sets readers up well to understand the Spanish vocabulary, including accurate phoneticization for non-Spanish speakers. Readers learn along with Rafi and Rosi as they explore bomba, plena, and salsa in three chapters.
#GOLDILOCKS DINOSAURS SERIES#
The fourth installment in Delacre’s early-reader series centers on the rich musical traditions of Puerto Rico, once again featuring sibling tree frogs Rafi and Rosi Coquí. Top-notch for group storytime, for a project on revising classics or just for enjoyment funniest for kids who know the original. When she’s beyond satiated, her pupils dilate-enormous, then tiny-subtly nodding to the old tale’s “too big, too small” theme.

Willems’ trademark cartoon-style illustrations include sly eyebrows, sardonic glances and a fabulous picture of Goldilocks inside a pudding bowl. Child-friendly irony lets readers giggle knowingly as Mama Dinosaur muses, “I SURE HOPE NO INNOCENT LITTLE SUCCULENT CHILD HAPPENS BY OUR UNLOCKED HOME WHILE WE ARE…uhhh…SOMEPLACE ELSE!” They’re “definitely not hiding in the woods waiting for an unsuspecting kid” pudding sits unattended to enable the creation of “delicious chocolate-filled-little-girl-bonbons (which, by the way, are totally not the favorite things in the whole world for hungry Dinosaurs).” Winking, the text places readers gleefully in the know-and Goldilocks is no patsy either. Even funnier are the obviously fraudulent protestations. (Sept.The structure’s well-known, so the endpapers list myriad permutations, almost all crossed out: Goldilocks and the Three Clams? Three Ostriches? Three Glasses of Milk? Nope, it’s Dinosaurs: Papa, Mama and one Dinosaur "who happened to be visiting from Norway.” Details are tasty-chocolate pudding instead of porridge a different furniture riff (“The first chair was too tall. With a sense of irony (and humor) as sharp as this dinosaur trio’s talons, Willems’s retelling is a sure bet for audiences who have moved beyond more gently witty fare. They are “definitely not hiding in the woods,” peeking fiendishly from the treetops, as “a poorly supervised little girl named Goldilocks came traipsing along.” Goldilocks doesn’t hesitate to enter the dinos’ house or stick her whole head in their food (“who cares about temperature when you’ve got a big bowl of chocolate pudding? Not her”), and she wises up just in time to give herself, if not the dinosaurs, a happy ending. rexes and smaller brown dino lick their lips and make comments suggestive of a plot (“I sure hope no innocent little succulent child happens by our unlocked home”), while the mock-naïve narration declares their innocence.



Having cooked up three bowls of chocolate pudding andĪrranged their house “just so,” the two olive-green T. In this sly sendup, Goldilocks (who could be a cousin of Knuffle Bunny’s Trixie) ventures into the home of three diabolical dinosaurs.
