Three stories of laughter, luck, and magic carry the precocious Rosa across the hillsides of Mexico. Elemental language conveys Rosa's encounters with a flower-bearing chicken, a gift-giving wolf, and an enchanted cooking pot. The vivid watercolor paintings of artist Andrea Arroyo bring Rosa and her delightful friends to life, while writer Campbell Geeslin's concise sentences prove the perfect vehicle for introducing simple Spanish words. A Spanish-English glossary accompanies the text. (Ages 4-7)

Geeslin injects elements of magic into each of three folkloric vignettes about a kind-hearted girl in rural Mexico. After volcano ash falls on the violet crop, Rosa's rooster is destined for the soup pot-until he starts to crow flowers each morning, so that she can sell them to buy soup meat; a handmade clay pot uncoils and flies the girl up to the sky, where she fetches a star to heal her ailing burro; and a talking wolf gives Rosa an embroidered silk pillow that inspires pleasant dreams. The author unobtrusively works Spanish vocabulary into his simply stated yet musical text. While a glossary is included, kids will easily grasp the gist of many foreign words from the context alone: "There is a golden anillo on the windowsill, and Rosa puts it on her finger." Other clues to the words' meanings are amply provided in Arroyo's (La Boda: A Mexican Wedding Celebration) sunlit, uncluttered folk-like paintings. Her whimsical interpretations accommodate the stories' fantastic moments while treating the eye to the spectrum of bold colors found in Rosa's Mexico. Ages 4-7.

Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Kindergarten-Grade 2-Three exceedingly short stories about a Mexican girl named Rosa and her magical encounters with a rooster that spews forth violets, a burro with a heavenly star on its forehead, and a fox that steals a bride's golden ring. Although the illustrations display a folkloric charm and an innate playfulness, the writing is stilted and austere. The sentences are structured with a deliberate bluntness that makes reading these tales aloud a monotone endeavor. These selections are filled with captivating, magical symbols, but fall short of their true potential because of the uninspired text.

Selene S. Vasquez, New York Public Library

Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Ages 2^-5. In three simple vignettes about a Mexican child, Rosa's goodness and spirit connect her with the natural world. When she has no flowers to sell for food, the cock (el gallo) opens its beak and out fly flowers. When the cooking pot (olla) cracks, Rosa collects clay and makes a new one that helps her fly to the stars and heal her donkey (burro). When a wolf (el lobo) steals a bride's ring, Rosa returns it and dances with everyone at the wedding fiesta. There's a clear glossary and pronunciation guide, but the Spanish words are a natural part of the story, with no italics or parentheses. Arroyo's clear, rhythmic paintings in glowing color combine the domestic and the supernatural with a simple magic realism that connects the kitchen with the stars. Hazel Rochman