The Christmas Gift / El regalo de Navidad (Spanish Edition)
Ages 5-9. LikeLa Mariposa(1999), this picture book in both English and Spanish tells one story from Jimenez's award-winning autobiographical collection,The Circuit: Stories from the Life of a Migrant Child (1997). The boy Panchito dreams of getting a red ball for Christmas; but there's no work and no money for presents, and the family must move again. When a man and his pregnant wife try to sell their meager possessions to get food and shelter, Panchito hears his father say, "We're broke, too." The surprise on the last page reveals Papa's true gifts of kindness and love. The child's focus is on his own disappointing gift, and, like him, the young picture-book audience may miss the subtlety of the Christmas metaphor about the couple finding no room at the inn. However, Cotts' stylized acrylic paintings, rich in color, express the tenderness of the narrative and the facts of the poverty. The story's power is in the simple words that directly tell of having to leave home. As the family drives away in search of work, Panchito waves to his friends on the school playground, "but they [do] not see him."Hazel RochmanCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved