Celia Cruz, Queen of Salsa

Title: Celia Cruz, Queen of Salsa
Author:Veronica Chambers
Illustrated:Julie Maren
Published:Puffin Books
Date: July 19, 2007
Summary: This book is about the famous Cuban singer Celia Cruz, who had a beautiful voice and enchanted everyone who heard her.
Age Level:Upper Elementary (5-6)
Strengths: I like how the pictures were very colorful when they described her life. They were very vibrant. The illustrator showed good warm and cool colors in order to show the culture of Celia's Cruz's home, Cuba. Everyone who knew her loved her voice, she was just like a little bird (that was seen throughout the book). She went through good times and bad times, and tough decision, but she loved to sing and she wasn't going to let anyone stop her from her dreams. I liked how the author included some Spanish in the story as well because it showed the language as well as the culture.
Concerns: There were some white pages that just had the text, when most of the pages were colorful. Perhaps the author and illustrator did this in order to balance out color and white spaces. There were also some Spanish words but perhaps the author could have used more (but she did a great job explaining them).
Comments: This would be great to learn about Hispanic countries, its people, cultures and traditions.