Quinito, Day and Night/Quinito, día y noche.
Reviewed by Ann Welton, Grant Center for the Expressive Arts, Tacoma, WA -- Críticas, 5/15/2008
Cumpiano, Ina.
illus. by José Ramirez. U.S.: Children’s Book Press. 2008. unpaged. ISBN 978-0-89239-226-1. $16.95
K-Gr 2–This sequel to Quinito’s Neighborhood (Children’s Book Press, 2005) is a clever book of opposites. Beginning with his family’s wake-up habits, Quinito notes that while his baby sister gets up early and his older brother gets up late, he wakes up at “just the right time.” And so, he goes on to compare short and tall, young and old, neat and messy, rainy and sunny, sad and happy, fast and slow, up and down, high and low, quiet and loud, long and short, left and right, night and day, and awake and asleep. The deceptively simple text manages not only to compare the words, but to paint a re-assuring portrait of a happy child in a loving and supportive family. The few points of conflict, such as a group of noisy boys playing next to a sleeping baby, only serve to give the narrative verisimilitude. Ramirez’s deep-hued oil-on-canvas primitive artwork has a childlike directness combined with a near flawless sense of composition and weighting. His paintings are a pleasure to look at—and warrant repeated perusal. Young listeners will be drawn in by the charm of the confident young narrator and the complementary illustrations. An excellent introduction or reinforcement of the concept of opposites, this is also just a good family story.
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