Niño Wrestles the World (Golden Kite Honors)
K-Gr 3–The first spread of this appealing title says it all. With the simple text “Niño!” (Kid!), readers see a boy playing with his toys, including a lucha libre wrestling ring with masked wrestler toys. One by one, Niño faces and defeats his formidable opponents: The Mummy of Guanajuato, the stone Olmec Head, La Llorona, the Alien, and the devil-like El Chamuco. But when his little sisters wake up from their naps, he faces his biggest challenge yet: Las Hermanitas. Everything about this book is well integrated and thought out: The endpapers are decorated with baseball-card-style information on each of Niño's opponents, including phonetic spellings of their Spanish names. Spanish words and phrases appear throughout, but they are easily understood in context. An author's note gives some background information about lucha libre and its popularity in Mexico. This is a near-perfect book, and absolutely essential for any collection. α(c) Copyright 2013.  Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc.  No redistribution permitted.