Marta! big & small

PreS-K--An ordinary girl, Marta, is so many extraordinary things to the creatures who surround her in this board book lesson on perspective that perfectly combines English and Spanish words. "To a horse, Marta is lenta/ Slow, very slow." Then, to a turtle on the next page, "Marta is rápida./ Fast, very fast." Readers learn she is sabrosa, or tasty to a snake, ruidosa or loud to a rabbit, and more. By the end, children will know that Marta is all these things, and none of these things, unless she wants to be. VERDICT Offering simple ideas and splendid insights, this is an ideal book for the bilingual shelves.

The comparisons between a young girl and the animals she encounters make for a unique Spanish primer. Marta, a brown-skinned child cued as Latine, with her hair up in double buns, is "an ordinary girl," but her adventure is anything but. Starting from the base of her treehouse, she sees an elephant, a horse, a lion, even a huge snake. Readers discover how the child is viewed very differently by each creature. "To a bug, Marta is grande. Big. Very big." But "To an elephant, Marta is pequeña. Small, very small." A horse might see Marta as "lenta" ("slow, very slow"), while a turtle sees her as "rápida" ("Fast, very fast"). Each Spanish word is explained clearly in context without it feeling like a dictionary-style translation. At the end of the book, a two-page spread uses a new set of Spanish words to show how she and each creature are alike. She's "fast like el caballo" (the horse), "small like el insecto" (the insect), and, of course, "clever, very clever, like una niña." Illustrations, dominated by Marta's expressive face and body, paired with animal action shots on white backgrounds, are effective and fun, helping the Spanish vocabulary lesson go down easily. (This book was reviewed digitally.) A simple but effective Spanish-word lesson for little ones. (Board book. 3-5) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.