Roberto's Trip to the Top
Kindergarten-Grade 2—Roberto's reward for good grades is a trip with his uncle up theteleférico, or cable car, to the mountains overlooking Caracas, Venezuela. Roberto had hoped to take pictures for his father, who has stayed behind tending the store, but he drops the camera down a ravine. The disappointed but resourceful lad then asks a vendor to take a snapshot so he can share his adventure withPapáafter all. The text is primarily narrative, relating what happens to Roberto, and its direct prose makes it better suited to independent reading than to reading aloud. The book uses little figurative language, but a simile comparing cable cars to spaceships nicely conveys a child's sense of wonder in new experiences. The round, cheerful faces in the illustrations highlight the simple joys found in the text. Alarcão's heavy brushstrokes also evoke the mists that hang over the tropical rain forests of Venezuela's mountains. Spanish words are sprinkled throughout, and children can use contextual clues to guess their meanings (or use the glossary). However, the writers use many phrases that are more common in Mexico than in Venezuela, such asándaleandpeso. Moreover, the description of atortillafits the Mexican usage of this term, whereas in Venezuela the wordtortillais used to describe a fritatta. Although the book is a nice introduction to a relatively unfamiliar country, it does not accurately reflect Venezuelan Spanish.—Mary Landrum, Lexington Public Library, KYCopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.