The great and mighty Nikko! A bilingual counting book

Xavier Garza

Book - 2015

"Nikko's mother wants him to stop jumping on his bed, but he's not jumping on his bed, as he tried to convince her. Instead there are luchadors, masked wrestlers, trying to fight him one at a time. In the end, of course, Nikko is the winner: the great and mightly Nikko!"--

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Subjects
Published
El Paso, TX : Cinco Puntos Press [2015]
Language
Spanish
Main Author
Xavier Garza (author)
Edition
First edition
Physical Description
1 volume (unpaged) : color illustrations ; 23 cm
ISBN
9781935955832
9781935955825
Contents unavailable.
Review by New York Times Review

There's so much you can do with just the first three numbers, as Ruzzier ("A Letter for Leo") shows in this compact take on the counting book. Two mice, drawn with Ruzzier's usual warm quirkiness, confront visual problems in the form of one, two or three - boats and oars or, suspensefully, a mama eagle with three mouths to feed. What a cute, clever way into number sense. THE GREAT AND MIGHTY NIKKO! A Bilingual Counting Book. Written and illustrated by Xavier Garza. 32 pp. Cinco Puntos. $16.95. (Picture book; ages 2 to 7) Lucha libre fans who also have little ones to share books with: Rejoice! Garza brings the Mexican masked wrestlers into the home of a boy named Nikko with bursts of comics-style color and a muralist's larger-than-life energy. Nikko's mother says to stop wrestling on his bed. The luchadores keep increasing one by one, until there are 10 - and an epic battle in side-by-side English and Spanish. WHAT IN THE WORLD? Numbers in Nature By Nancy Raines Day. Illustrated by Kurt Cyrus. 32 pp. Beach Lane. $17.99. (Picture book; ages 4 to 8) The numerical nature of nature forms the basis of this elegant rhymed counting book, which calls attention to orderly patterns all around us. What comes grouped in threes? "Leaves of a clover, bodies of bees." Nines? "Stickleback fish's prickly spines." We end with a set that is "too big to count" - stars in the night sky, in constellations shaped like the previous numbered things. CHARLIE PIECHART AND THE CASE OF THE MISSING PIZZA SLICE By Eric Comstock and Marilyn Sadler. 40 pp. Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins. $17.99. (Picture book; ages 4 to 8) In this retro-pop treat, pizza night at Charlie's house requires some fleet calculations: If you've ordered pies for "particular" eaters, you'll relate. Our hero has the advantage of a love of fractions and a body that is actually a pie chart, which comes in handy when a slice goes missing. Mom and Dad help out by splitting one, though Charlie's sleuthing eventually leads to the culprit. SECRET CODERS By Gene Luen Yang. Illustrated by Mike Holmes. 91 pp. First Second. Paper. $9.99. (Graphic novel; ages 8 and up) Not until the end of this ingenious book does Yang ("Boxers" and "Saints") show his hand: "They're just lists of instructions, nothing more," we learn of computer programs. By then our basketball-loving heroes - a girl, Hopper, and a boy, Eni - have used basic coding principles to crack a mystery involving four-eyed birds and a creepy school janitor. The next installment can't come soon enough. ONLINE An expanded visual presentation at nytimes.com/books.

Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [August 23, 2015]
Review by School Library Journal Review

PreS-Gr 2-Nikko is an adventure-loving boy who tries to convince his mother that he is not responsible for a ruckus in his room, but rather it's the nine luchadores who show up one by one to wrestle on his bed. Nikko is supposed to be winding down, but what ensues is a wrestling match (Mighty Nikko becomes number 10) that finally tuckers him out. The writing is quite bland as each spread introduces another luchador for Nikko to deal with. While the story line is not particularly strong, the boldly colored cartoonlike illustrations are the highlight here. Children will enjoy the variations in luchadores, from their colorful masks to their unique costumes. VERDICT Garza's vibrant colors will keep readers coming back, even if the bilingual narrative does not.-Martha Rico, El Paso ISD, TX © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review

Nikko's mother wants him to go to sleep, but there are too many (toy) luchadores wrestling on his bed. While the counting concept is amusing and there's value in the simple Spanish vocabulary lesson, the lack of a firm story arc and uninteresting dialogue result in a lackluster bilingual text unbefitting the energy of Garza's superhero-comics-style illustrations. (c) Copyright 2016. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.