Unfortunately, Boogie in the Bronx! (Barefoot Singalongs) did not “do it” for me. In the long run, there is nothing wrong with Jackie Azua Kramer’s story, but the elements did not mesh for me.
The first issue is I was reading it (via an online reader copy, book is due October 2023) and not having it sung/read to me. I think that will make a big different. The Spanish words will be correctly spoken (even though there is a pronunciation key under the word) and it feels as you need the music and that flow. I have read other books where Sol y Canto was to perform it, and I felt it would have been stronger having heard them. The idea of different dances and counting mixed together is fresh. The 10 different types of Afro-Lantin and African American music can be both familiar and new.
What really did not work for me is the art of Jana Glatt. I appreciate the time and effort that went into it, but the abstract cartoon nature of the illustrations was too much. Overwhelming colors, the odd details or lack thereof, and things felt incomplete and broken. Glatt has a way of making noses that looks like, well, I am not sure what it looks like, but not what my tastes want as a nose. Again, I appreciate their hard work, but I am not the audience for their work.
There is an afterwards that ties a few things together and gives a little more information to the inspiration and area the author is featuring.