Starred Review ALA Booklist (Mon Mar 01 00:00:00 CST 2021)

Starred Review This bilingual reader kicks off ong with the simultaneously released Tag Team e El Toro and Friends series, expanding the bustling, Mexican border-town world created in the award-winning ¡Vamos! picture books. Here, El Toro, a burly luchador, must train for his match against undefeated champion the Wall, but El Toro is reluctant to leave his bed. Enter his trainer, a bug-eyed chicken aptly named Kooky Dooky, who lays out a training regimen in an energizing series of double-spread thought bubbles. After the luchador finally rises, a Rocky-style neighborhood jog brings the inspiration he needs to complete Kooky Dooky's training and take down the Wall. In typical ¡Vamos! style, a vibrant world bursts to life on every page, filled with movement and a detailed host of cartoon characters, though text and images are simplified to accommodate beginning readers. Raúl offers a lesson in visual literacy, utilizing speech bubbles and panels in addition to traditional narration. Select English phrases are echoed in the text es that bear repeating, thus maintaining a natural flow t this title overcomes any linguistic barriers through its irresistible art.

Horn Book (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

This easy-reader spinoff series dives into lucha libre action with the fantastical cast from the author's !Vamos! picture books (beginning with !Vamos!: Let's Go to the Market, rev. 3/20). In Training Day, Kooky Dooky, the ever-peppy and loony rooster, is determined to prepare El Toro for his big match against The Wall (who is undefeated), but El Toro wants to linger in bed and snooze. Eventually Kooky lures El Toro out of bed and all around town, where he chases chickens, smashes pinatas, and "helps las abuelitas cross the street," sharpening his senses, speed, and patience while basking in the motivational cheers from the town's surreal-looking creatures. Tag Team finds El Toro and his tag-team partner, La Oink Oink, the morning after their exhilarating win against the evil duo Donny Dollars and Bald Aguila, unable to savor triumph's afterglow because El Coliseo is a spectacular mess. With boom box amped, El Toro and La Oink Oink bust out their lucha moves, battling sticky floors and clogged toilets and getting the job done. Simple sentences and recognizable -- yet entirely fresh and original -- plot structures set up young readers for accomplishment. Visual and linguistic whirls and twirls match the fast-paced tempo of lucha libre, serving up dazzling Chicano English and details such as El Toro's "telefono watch-o," the "Punk Nopal" graffiti tag on a bathroom wall, and the revving lowrider onomatopoeia "RRREEOW!" of La Oink Oink's tricked-out ranfla. This pizzazz echoes throughout the chillante palette of matte violet, teal, and orange hues, animating the dynamic motion lines in comic-book-style drawings, rewarding attentive eyes and ears with endless detail and inside jokes. Lettycia Terrones

Kirkus Reviews

El Toro needs to train for his big lucha libre match, but all he wants to do is sleep!Poor Kooky Dooky-¿Qué va hacer? What's he going to do? This quirky, early-reader spinoff of the ¡Vamos! series follows exasperated trainer Kooky Dooky as he pulls all the stops to get and keep El Toro out of bed. How about a big breakfast? Nope. After a gigantic belch, the sluggish luchador nose-dives under the covers. The rooster lures his trainee out of the bed with smelly shoes and a promise to go easy. Finally the training program gets results: Obstreperous chickens are caught by hand-er, hoof; the unplugged mechanical bull is dominated; the "Spiked Piñatas of DOOM" are pulverized; junk cars are crushed; and abuelas are helped across the street. Todo es listo-all is ready. Today El Toro will obliterate The Wall (pun very much intended-one of The Wall's fans sports a distinctive blond 'do and orange skin). The unstoppable Raúl the Third brings his border barrio to rip-roaring life with plenty of humor, embedded Spanish, and Chicano cultural references. Colorist Bay's creative enhancement of Raúl's detail-rich frames continues their energetic collaboration. Action explodes throughout, though readers may be disappointed by the abrupt ending. In the simultaneously publishing Tag Team, El Toro and La Oink Oink team up to clean the arena following their thrashing of Donny Dollars and the Bald Águila.Comic-book and lucha libre fans alike will not tap out of this semibilingual smackdown. (Early reader. 4-8)

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

Pura Belpré Medalist Raúl the Third expands the ¡Vamos! universe in this jaunty spin-off series opener following the luchador El Toro and his friends. In this installment, rooster and unrelenting luchador trainer Kooky Dooky endeavors to motivate a lethargic El Toro to prepare for his match against The Wall, a powerfully built wrestler -made out of bricks- and -undefeated champion of the world.- Sporting a nightcap and comfortably burrowed underneath star-patterned blankets, El Toro gives excuse after excuse, in English and Spanish, to avoid training (-I-m tired. Estoy cansado-), but the sprightly Kooky Dooky remains undeterred (-You are not tired. You slept for eight hours!-). The action picks up once Kooky Dooky persuades El Toro to try a training regimen-readers are treated to a montage of El Toro performing a series of increasingly hilarious tasks (e.g., hitting -the Spiked Piñatas of DOOM!-). As in the World of ¡Vamos! books, the creator, alongside colorist Elaine Bay, utilizes comics-style layouts and an eye-catching, lightly faded color palette. Though the big match-up between El Toro and The Wall feels truncated, lively banter and humorous illustrations make for an absorbing early reader. Publishing simultaneously: Tag Team (El Toro and Friends). Ages 4-7. (Apr.)