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. 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.

There's just the right level of grotesquerie and scariness (worms that are 'blue and purple and very wriggly') in this utterly charming chapter book.Įarwig, as a spunky as any Jones heroine, keeps young and old readers chuckling through sadness at an era's end Earwig, illustrated with marvelous vitality by Zelinsky, is not to be trifled with. But how to do so when wicked Bella Yaga keeps threatening to give her worms? Moreover, no matter what, Earwig has been warned not to disturb the Mandrake, who trucks with demons. Indomitable Earwig determines that if she must work for a smelly witch, at least she'll learn magic. Bella Yaga and the Mandrake cart Earwig off, willy-nilly, to powder rats' bones and cook breakfast. But a terrible new pair of prospective parents arrives at the home: nasty-faced Bella Yaga and the Mandrake, a ridiculously tall man who seems to have horns.

She's excellent at making herself unlovable to potential foster parents so they'll leave her alone in sunny St. Earwig manages people to perfection, and everyone at Saint Morwald's Home for Children does exactly what Earwig wants, whether it's making her a shepherd's pie or buying her a new red sweater. Most children hate orphanages, but Earwig-Erica Wigg, according to her birth certificate-loves hers. A cunning heroine learns magic in Jones' last, posthumous offering.

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