Today Is the Day

On the day of their father's promised return to their village in Mexico, Yesenia is ecstatic, but Yara, thinking of the fates of other working fathers, fears he will not return and waits worriedly for every incoming bus.

Kindergarten-Grade 3?Young Yesenia spends the day in her rural Mexican town anxiously awaiting her father, who has been working far away from home for the last six months. Her older sister doubts that he will keep his word and return, since so many of her friends' fathers have left and never come back. All day Yesenia runs to meet buses, but as each one arrives without her father, she begins to wonder if her sister is right. Finally, long after the sun has set, the man returns. In addition to the migrant-worker topic, the story's more general theme of having faith in parents is a universal one with which children will readily sympathize. Stock's watercolors are exuberant and poignant, helping readers to understand Yesenia's hopes and fears. A fine selection that should inspire discussion.?Denise E. Agosto, Midland County Public Library, TX
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

"Today is the day! Papa's coming home today!" rejoices Yesenia, dancing with the chicks in the yard in her excitement. She and her older sister, Yara, and their mother had said good-bye to Papa six months earlier; a drought dried up the fields in their Mexican village, and so Papa went up north to find a job. Yara, remembering other fathers who have left the village and never come back, refuses to hope for her father's return. Yesenia, on the other hand, meets every bus from the city, her optimism turning to despair just before the happy ending. Although her text is predictable and a bit wordy, Riecken (Andrew's Own Place) exposes youngsters to a heartrending scenario that is a very real part of life in rural areas throughout the world. Stock's watercolor art, somewhat stiffer and less polished here than in such previous works as Tap-Tap and Nellie Bly's Monkey, mirrors the somber tone of the story with her palette, from the bleached colors of the arid fields to the gray-blue shades of the shadowy dusk. Ages 4-8.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Ages 4^-8. From the moment she wakes up, Yese feels the excitement of her father's homecoming. Unable to farm because of the drought, her father has been in the city for six months. Now he's due home. Older sister Yara doesn't believe Papa will ever come back, and for a little while it almost seems as if she were right. Riecken edges into melodrama toward the end, but she still manages to create a sensitive story of a child's hope in the face of pessimism. Stock's tender watercolors vividly use facial expression and posture--limp with disappointment, dancing with excitement--to show Yese's feelings. The combination of text and art conveys the difficult life of Mexican farmers without becoming bleak or losing sight of the compensating joys of family. Susan Dove Lempke