La carrera de Ricardo/Ricardo’s Race.

Reviewed by Veronica Covington, Univ. of Texas, Austin -- Críticas, 7/15/2007

Gr 3–This moving biography follows the life of Ricardo Romo from his early childhood through his university years and back to his hometown where he became the president of the University of Texas at San Antonio. Ricardo’s father owned a small grocery store on Guadalupe Street, and, along with the rest of the family, he helped at the family business. Early in his life, the boy discovered that he loved to run, and was also good at it. He became a member of the high school track team, and won an athletic scholarship at the University of Texas. As he confides, he almost didn’t go to college because a counselor at the junior high insisted he should enroll in a tech school instead of a preparatory high school. With the help of a coach, he changed his program the last two years of high school and eventually went on to obtain a Ph.D. in History from UCLA. The illustrations depict the 1940s through the 1960’s using simple line drawings filled in with vibrant colors, and the last page presents Romo’s chronology. Recommended for elementary and public libraries.