La Mariposa

September 28, 1998
A Spanish-speaking boy struggles through first grade in this disjointed tale. Arriving in January for his first day of school, Francisco, the son of a migrant worker, gets a headache as he listens to all the other children speak English; his name is the only word he recognizes. Finally, he "learned a way out. When his head began to hurt from trying to understand, he let his mind wander." As Jim nez (The Circuit: Stories from the Life of a Migrant Child) describes the boy's daydreams, the narrative also begins to wander; the action moves from the present to Francisco's daydreams and back, then skips ahead from late January to March. Francisco eventually does earn the respect of his peers because of his talent as an artist (his drawing of a butterfly--la mariposa--wins first prize in a contest), but this story line is eclipsed by other threads in the plot (including a fist fight with the most popular kid in class resulting from a misunderstanding, resolved when Francisco awards the bully with his prize drawing). Silva's (Gathering the Sun) gouache illustrations recall the warm earthy tones of Mexican folk art, but his characters are curiously expressionless. Alternate spreads include no art and introduce large blocks of text with few paragraph breaks, rendering this cumbersome reading for the target audience. Ages 6-10.