Bravo!: Poems About Amazing Hispanics - Hardcover

Engle, Margarita

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0805098763 ISBN 13: 9780805098761

Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR), 2017

Synopsis

Musician, botanist, baseball player, pilot―the Latinos featured in Bravo!, by author Margarita Engle and illustrator Rafael López, come from many different countries and from many different backgrounds.

Celebrate their accomplishments and their contributions to a collective history and a community that continues to evolve and thrive today!

Biographical poems include: Aida de Acosta, Arnold Rojas, Baruj Benacerraf, César Chávez, Fabiola Cabeza de Baca, Félix Varela, George Meléndez, José Martí, Juan de Miralles, Juana Briones, Julia de Burgos, Louis Agassiz Fuertes, Paulina Pedroso, Pura Belpré, Roberto Clemente, Tito Puente, Ynes Mexia, Tomás Rivera.

Bravo! también está disponible en edición en español.

About this title

About the Authors

Margarita Engle is the Cuban-American author of many verse novels, memoirs, and picture books, including The Surrender Tree, All the Way to Havana, Bravo!, Drum Dream Girl, and Dancing Hands. Awards include a Newbery Honor, Pura Belpré Medals, Golden Kite Award, Walter Honor, Jane Addams Award, PEN U.S.A., and NSK Neustadt Prize, among others. Margarita served as the national 2017-2019 Young People’s Poet Laureate. Recent young adult verse novels include Wings in the Wild and Wild Dreamers. Recent picture books include Water Day and The Sculptors of Light.

Margarita was born in Los Angeles, but developed a deep attachment to her mother’s homeland during childhood summers with relatives on the island. She studied agronomy and botany along with creative writing, and now lives in central California.

Rafael López is a New York Times bestselling, award winning illustrator who was born and raised in Mexico City to architect parents. His illustrations bring diverse characters to children's books and he is driven to produce and promote books that reflect and honor the lives of all young people. He is the recipient of 3 Pura Belpré medals, the Schneider Family Book Award, Jane Addams Book Award, and Tomas Rivera Book Award, as well as the illustrator of 3 New York Times bestsellers. He was the first guest artist of the Smithsonian National Postal Museum in 2022. López is a founder of the Urban Art Trail movement in San Diego's East Village, creating a series of large-scale murals that brought the community together. Rafael lives and works in an industrial loft in Downtown San Diego and at his home/studio in the colonial town of San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.

Reviews

Gr 4–7—Engle highlights 18 Latinxs from a range of ethnic backgrounds and countries of origin, all of whom lived in what is now the United States or its territories. Each person made a positive impact on U.S. history, and although some are not well-known, their contributions warrant an important place in the U.S. collective cultural knowledge. Engle's masterly first-person poems capture the essence of each individual, while notes about each figure at the end provide context to spur curiosity and further research. Additionally, the final celebratory poem features an additional 22 contemporary Latinxs in a crescendo to the present, ending with applause: "¡Bravo!" The pairing of these biographical poems with López's distinctive artwork leaves a lasting visual impression, as the subjects, surrounded by images representing their vocations, look readers straight in the eye or are totally absorbed in their work. These full-page illustrations serve as bold counterparts to the poems. VERDICT Although lacking specific source notes for student readers and writers, this book is a welcome addition to schools and libraries, as it expands the canon of historically significant individuals in the United States in such a lyrical and aesthetically pleasing manner.—Ruth Quiroa, National Louis University, Chicago, IL

Edition details

• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)
• Publication date: 2017
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0805098763
• ISBN 13: 9780805098761
• Binding: Hardcover
• Illustrator: López Rafael
• Number of pages: 48