I decided that when I got an email from Charlesbridge (a publisher) I would read some of the twelve online picture book reader copies included. I ended up reading ten (one had been previously read, so technically nine). I didn’t read two because the covers didn’t “speak to me” but I saved the links in case they someday would.
One of the reads was Adela’s Mariachi Band. Due in mid-August, this story by Denise Vega and illustrated by Erika Rodriguez Medina was not what I expected. I thought it would be: In a mariachi band you have violins, horns, and the ladies dance, and someone sings. You play music from Mexico and… in other words, a textbook about mariachi bands. Now there is nothing wrong with that, it just was not what I was looking for. Thankfully what I got was something more than expected.
Adela loves her family’s mariachi band. The sounds, the colors and especially her aunt who, as the music plays, gives out one heck of a los gritos! The only problem is, Adela is not actually in her family’s band, but in the audience. She tries different things to try and belong, but her trumpet is flat, her dance is out of step. But where can she help? Of course, we know where her talents are (if you watch/read the “comments” she has when her attempts don’t work out, you know), but it takes a lot of lovely illustrations (that are bubbly, colorful and really have a hint of sound if you’re in the right state of mind), and a bit of text, before Adela finds where she belongs.
There is nonfiction included with some of the “technical stuff” at the end. When presented this way, it helps reinforce the story and makes it more interesting and less “too educational.” (Nothing wrong with that way, just not my preference). The kid me loved the colors and the story, the adult me loved the learning of the cultural background, and both loved the fact that I knew what a “los gritos” was from my multiple viewings of Coco (a Pixar movie).