“Here children / learn to sing / with their hearts” writes poet Francisco Alarcón in “Ode to Buena Vista Bilingual School,” one of seventeen poems in this marvelous bilingual (Spanish and English) collection. Alarcón writes with playful humor and a full heart about his beloved city of San Francisco, and about winter in the snow-laden Sierra Nevada mountains.

Specificity of place does not limit the poems' accessibility, however. They are vibrant, welcoming, and child-friendly. Maya Christina Gonzalez's energetic, joyful artwork is a perfect accompaniment. As they did in their three previous bilingual books of poems about different seasons and Mexican American life that came before, Laughing Tomatoes and Other Spring Poems, From the Bellybutton of the Moon and Other Summer Poems, and Angels Ride Bikes and Other Fall Poems, Alarcón and Gonzalez have teamed to create a lively celebration of season and culture in which everyone can share.

Megan Schliesman
December 2001