This Pura Belpre Award winner is an interesting but complicated little tome. First, it looks like a picture book but is actually a step-up chapter book. Second, the title is somewhat misleading, in that you might think it is about a girl and her dog, but it isn't. It is about a girl and her family and her English classes and her friends and her neighbors and her city ~~and~~ her dog. The dog doesn't actually appear in some chapters beyond a mention. On one hand, it gives a nice "flipped view" of what English feels like to someone who lives in another nation (it also, coincidently, gives a nice overview of life in Bogota, Colombia). It also mixes Spanish words in, sometimes defining them, sometimes not, so that readers get a good flavor of the language without being overwhelmed. On the other hand, this feels like one of those "preachy" books which adults write for kids to teach them something. The vocabulary is, at times, a little high-falutin' for the audience (i.e. "illuminated", "eternally" and "neurotic"). Juana doesn't want to learn English and all the adults tell her why she should. Near the end of the book she learns another "lesson" about idolizing an action figure who isn't what she imagined. Like oh-so-many books, this looks like a childhood memoir in disguise, which I rarely care for and often comes off with too much adult perspective. None-the-less, the book is saved by the artwork and layout. Ms. Medina creates engaging child-like figures in bright colors to illustrate the tale, but beyond that she turns the text into an "almost" concrete poem, playing with word font, size and direction. It makes the story more engaging and exciting as phrases literally jump off the page at you. Kids will enjoy this even if I found it slightly lacking.
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