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A review by mldavisreads
Luca's Bridge/El Puente de Luca by Mariana Llanos, Anna Lopez Real
challenging
hopeful
reflective
slow-paced
3.5
Children's bilingual book. Luca and his family are leaving their home in the United States to go back to Mexico, where his parents are from. Though both Luca and his brother are US citizens, their parents are not. In order to keep the family together, they all go back to live with Luca's grandmother. Luca is nervous about leaving his friends and not speaking Spanish. Luckily he is able to keep his beloved trumpet, and has a dream where his music builds a bridge that lets him visit home last time.
I like that this story focuses on the immigration issue by showing one family's story. The issue is so nuanced that it's hard for children to understand on a broader level. It seemed short though, there was no start of seeing Luca's family in the US, just as they were starting to leave. The illustrations were very peaceful, with a black, blue, and yellow color palette that matched the quiet, sad tone of the story. I also appreciated that there were no encounters with law enforcement, as I know is not always the case, but that made it easier to focus on the feelings of the family members. The format of this story is kind of interesting-- the text makes it too long for a picture book and really even an I Can Read text, but there are no chapters so it's not an early chapter book. We simply have it with our other bilingual books, but classifying it might be harder for those that have more subdivision on those shelves.
I like that this story focuses on the immigration issue by showing one family's story. The issue is so nuanced that it's hard for children to understand on a broader level. It seemed short though, there was no start of seeing Luca's family in the US, just as they were starting to leave. The illustrations were very peaceful, with a black, blue, and yellow color palette that matched the quiet, sad tone of the story. I also appreciated that there were no encounters with law enforcement, as I know is not always the case, but that made it easier to focus on the feelings of the family members. The format of this story is kind of interesting-- the text makes it too long for a picture book and really even an I Can Read text, but there are no chapters so it's not an early chapter book. We simply have it with our other bilingual books, but classifying it might be harder for those that have more subdivision on those shelves.