I was halfway through the illustrated children’s book when all of a sudden I thought, This doesn’t sound like a fictional story. Sure enough, once I got to the end of little Tito’s musical journey I discovered he was no fictional character!
Tito Puente – Mambo King by: Monica Brown
In fact, the reader experiences quite a fascinating ride following the life of musician, Ernest Anthony Puente Jr. “King of the Mambo”, with the book’s energy-filled pages and bilingual aspect. (When I first started reading the book and flipped to the first page, I thought it was only in Spanish and had no idea how I was going to review it! …then I saw the English text above the Spanish.)
Tito Puente-Mambo King is very vibrant, faster paced, and quite colorful-wonderful components to keeping a reader (especially a child) engaged in an illustrated story. If it’s artfully done, like this one, I say the more for a child to look at, the better! Plus, on top of it just being a story, you get a music and general history lesson.
At the back of the book, there’s a short biography of Puente Jr. that you can read and learn all sorts of facts about him. And if you’re bilingual, you can even read the biography twice!
I have to say, in spite of not being particularly fond of bilingual children’s books or this style of illustration, my hat is off to Miss Brown for creating such a fun and enjoyable book. It was well done.
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