Reviewed by:
Review Source: De Colores: The Raza Experience in Books for Children
Book Author: Jairo Buitrago
The cover of the Spanish version, Camino a casa, depicts a little girl who’s being held in the safety of whom we soon learn is a lion. The English version, Walk with Me, shows her offering a flower to the lion, who is sitting on a grassy knoll near a pedestal on which is engraved, “1948.” And girl, lion, and pedestal appear on the first full-bleed spread of both versions as well.
The little girl asks her lion-friend to protect her from “falling asleep” as she navigates her dangerous, dilapidated city, picking up her baby brother from child care, shopping for groceries from the tienda whose owner refuses credit, arriving home to cook dinner, and waiting until her mamá returns from her job at the factory. Finally, the girl gives her lion-friend-protector permission to “go up back into the hills again,” but to be sure to return when she needs him. Continue reading.
Walk with Me by Jairo Buitrago
Published by Groundwood Books on 2017-03
Genres: Activism, Death and Dying, Family, South America
Pages: 35
Reading Level: Early Childhood, Grade K, Grades 1-2
ISBN: 9781554988570
Review Source: De Colores: The Raza Experience in Books for Children
Also by this author: Dos Conejos Blancos, On the Other Side of the Garden, Wounded Falcons
Publisher's Synopsis: A deceptively simple, imaginative story depicting the complex emotional reality of a girl whose father no longer lives at home.
The girl conjures up an imaginary companion, a lion, who will come with her on the long walk home from school. He will help her to pick up her baby brother from daycare and shop at the store (which has cut off the family's credit), and he'll keep her company all along the way until she is safe at home. He will always come back when she needs him, unlike the father whom she sees only in a photograph -- a photograph in which he clearly resembles a lion.
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