This rhyming alphabet book offers a realistic portrayal of a Puerto Rican barrio. The text and art don't shrink from showing the less pretty aspects of life in an urban community, such as broken bottles and abandoned cars. However, the verse and illustrations make the neighborhood come alive with a sense of love, joy, friendship, and family.

K Gr 2 From "abuela" to "Z street," this alphabet paints a portrait of a barrio while following the wanderings of a boy and girl across summer streets filled with murals, graffiti, and caring neighbors. Childhood games and everyday activities mark the pair's roaming. Gouache illustrations reflect primarily the predominant gray concrete and muted tones of the urban scenes with occasional flashes of bright color, backed by a hazy pastel palette. "M is for las muralistas , making murals of island vistas." While scenes reflect neighborhood life, close-ups of some individuals with profiled or turned faces restrict readers from viewing the emotion to match the strength of the author's words, as the importance of community and heritage merges with " R for mami's favorite word&30;Remember," or the children as they listen to a wise and respected elder. The alphabet ranges from descriptions of activities to residentscomfortable images (a vegetable plot that was once a vacant lot, an ice-cream truck, and children playing in the spray of a fire hydrant) to more revealing verbal imagery—noisy neighbors who sit on the stoop, "a universe of maple roots and sidewalk cracks." "Z street's loud with zooming cars. (They speed right through the crosswalk bars.)" This is a book of revealing words and identifiable images for children of the inner city or as an introduction to younger readers not accustomed to these sights.— Mary Elam, Learning Media Services Plano ISD, TX

This tour of the barrio reinforces city kids' experiences and offers suburban and country kids a look at a new kind of hometown. Like many alphabet books, it suffers by trying to appeal to two age levels at once. Those just learning the alphabet may not understand some of the implied meanings and troubling images, such as a burned-out building; older readers ready for more sophisticated concepts may be put off by what they perceive as a babyish format. Gritty as some of the entries are, there is no doubt that many kids see abandoned cars, smashed bottles, graffiti, and the like on a daily basis; encountering them in a matter-of-fact presentation like this one can spark worthwhile discussions. Life in this barrio isn't all bleak, however; kids play dominoes, chat with neighbors, grow vegetables in a former vacant lot, and more. Painterly gouache illustrations show two friends, one presumably from another neighborhood, together experiencing all the barrio has to offer.

In the first children's book from Hudes (who wrote the book for the musical In the Heights), an expressive girl takes a friend on a poetic tour of her inner-city neighborhood. ""E is for the echo of the elevated train./ F is for the fire hydrant spraying summer rain."" Chalky, gouache washes capture both the vital and gently dilapidated elements of city life: ""Q is for quemar, to burn a house to the ground beneath,/ making a block full of row homes look like a smile that's missing its two front teeth."" The subtle presence of the girl's personal narrative and her nuanced understanding of what makes her neighborhood home set this ABC book apart. Spanish-language edition also available. Ages 3%E2%80%937. (Aug.)