ALA Booklist (Sun Aug 01 00:00:00 CDT 2010)

Starting school is scary for Carmen, who has just arrived in the U.S. from Mexico, but with the help of la señora Coska, her kind teacher, she starts to learn English. The colorful illustrations, in ink, watercolor, and acrylic paint, show Carmen both happy at home and then struggling with worries at school. Many kids, especially immigrants, will enjoy the nonpreachy turnarounds, in which Ms. Coska (whose Spanish is muy terrible) has Carmen teach the other students Spanish, and Carmen tells the class bullies that they are the ones with an accent.

Horn Book

Mexican American Carmen reminisces about struggling to learn English at school. Her teacher speaks terrible Spanish, but she's sensitive enough to suggest that if the class can help Carmen learn English, she can help them learn Spanish. Carmen's earnest first-person narration can sound stilted ("But school was not all the time good"). Dominguez's ink, watercolor, and acrylic illustrations are warm-hearted. Glos.

Kirkus Reviews

An inventive teacher and a generous helping of internal strength takes Spanish-speaking Carmen over the language barrier when she starts school. La Senora Koski eases her new student into the classroom with a Spanish greeting: "Her Spanish sounded muy terrible!...I could see that she would not laugh at me if my English was terrible too." Word by word and phrase by phrase, Carmen picks up English; she bridges her experiences by teaching her classmates some Spanish and her little sister English so she will be ready to start school next year. Cox gets Carmen's narration just right, folding in both Spanish words and enough malapropisms to give readers a sense of her special voice. Dominguez's bright paintings present a basically confident little girl whose progress from anxious frowns to smiles will make readers cheer. Muy bueno . (glossary) (Picture book. 4-8)

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

The frustrations of starting school as the only Spanish-speaking student come through clearly in Cox's tale of a girl who slowly gets a handle on English with the help of a compassionate teacher. In first-person narration, Carmen doesn't mince words about her tumultuous emotions when she can't understand her classmates or is teased about her accent (""For a moment I wished I was back in Mexico, where all the people speak Spanish and no one makes fun of me""). Dominguez's mixed-media paintings can feel wooden%E2%80%94she's at her best with closeup images of Carmen that convey her trepidation, anger, and growing confidence. Ages 4%E2%80%938. (Aug.)

School Library Journal (Wed Sep 01 00:00:00 CDT 2010)

K-Gr 2 Older sister Carmen tells Lupita, who is about to enter kindergarten, about her first day of school, when she could speak only Spanish. She recalls other children teasing her about saying the wrong words or mocking her accent. Yet with a kind teacher's help, Carmen mastered English well enough to teach her new language to Lupita and then to begin to use it at school, where classmates learn Spanish from her. Dominguez's average-quality paintings convey a childlike energy and effectively express Carmen's moods. This charming celebration of bilingualism captures both the fears and delights of learning a new tongue. Mary Landrum, Lexington Public Library, KY