Con cariño, Amalia

A joyful biography that brings an influential musician to life. The rhythm of Monica Brown’s text—“The claves smacked clackity clackity clack clack, and everyone’s feet went tappity tap.”/“Las claves se golpeaban cláquiti, cláquiti, clac, clac y todos los pies hacían tápiti, tap.”—is as infectious as the Godfather of Salsa’s melodies. Young readers may be inspired by the fact that music was a part of Tito Puente’s life from a young age. As a child, he “banged spoons and forks on pots and pans,” took music lessons, and won his church’s “Stars of the Future contest” four times. Rafael López’s lively, exuberant artwork is true to the spirit of Puente’s music.

A bilingual picture book charts the life of the Mambo King himself, Tito Puente, with all the exuberance of the drummer and bandleader's irresistible music. Beginning with the opening endpapers, where two children peek through a flame-red theater curtain, Brown and López set the stage for a series of tableaux illuminating highlights in the Puerto Rican musician's life. The scenes themselves are simple enough -- Tito takes music lessons, Tito joins the Navy, Tito goes to Juilliard, Tito wins a Grammy -- and are told in straightforward English and Spanish language that lends itself to easy recitation and translation. The vibrant imagery hums right off the page, full of high-contrast color and energetic composition, and decorated with swirling, starry embellishments. The treatment is not especially deep and is decidedly positive: Tito's life reads like a sequence of successes, each met with acclaim from smiling audiences and enthusiastic animals on every page. While a brief biography as an endnote offers a bit more information, this brash, joyous outing lives to express not the facts of Tito Puente's life but the spirit of his music. A final rumba beat, in musical notation, captures the story's irregular refrain: "¡Tum Tica! ¡Tac Tic! ¡Tum Tic! ¡Tom Tom!" thom barthelmess