In these eighteen short poems, presented in English and in Spanish, Johnston regales the senses with idyllic scenes of streets lined with a rainbow of adobe houses, with the scent of roses growing in coffee cans and lilies in 'chile' jars, and with the sounds of fields of corn shaking quietly in the warm wind. The overall impression is one of sunbaked cheerfulness, warmth, and color ably reinforced by Sierra's pastel-tinted artwork. Glos.

K-Gr 3--Sensitive, soft but bright illustrations in pencil over watercolor depict Mexican scenes in 16 double-page spreads. Printed over the backgrounds are 18 poems in both English and Spanish (no translator is credited, so presumably Johnston, who lived in Mexico for 15 years, wrote both versions). The poems are mostly free verse, although there is some use of rhyme. They deal with everyday subjects such as cockroaches or corn, or historical topics such as the Nahuatl language or the disappearance of the Aztecs. Johnston is not at her best in these poems, which are a trifle pedestrian. The illustrations have charm, although several of the contemporary settings are unrealistically tidy or depicted in a sanitized manner. Margo Griego's Tortillitas para Mama (Holt, 1981) presents 13 traditional rhymes and their English translations with appealing paintings of Mexican life.--Pam Gosner, Maplewood Memorial Library, NJ