5elementknitr's review against another edition
5.0
Senior Calavares is fast becoming one of my all-time favorite kids' book characters!
little_silver's review against another edition
4.0
This is a great little crossover book: part counting book, part folk tale! Love the warm illustrations.... and can I just say that Grandma Beetle is #hairgoals for my granny-hood!
mslibrarynerd's review against another edition
4.0
A very fun counting book where a cute grandma outwits senor calavera in order to prepare for and celebrate her birthday. Bright colors and playful perspectives give this book a joyful quality.
readaloud_mom's review
emotional
funny
fast-paced
5.0
This is such a gorgeous bilingual counting book! My kid and I have loved on a lot of counting books together, but this one really stands out even among our favorites.
As an adult, I definitely read the story as part of the folktale genre where a trickster outwits a personification of Death; but I'd like to note that the book itself never explicitly connects Senor Calaveras with dying and my kid totally missed that subtext for several years. I really appreciate how the book leaves room to engage from a lot of angles (from giggling at the silliness of impatient Senor Calaveras, to comparing it to other tales about cheating Death, to "Mommy, what is the name of that bone?")
As an adult, I definitely read the story as part of the folktale genre where a trickster outwits a personification of Death; but I'd like to note that the book itself never explicitly connects Senor Calaveras with dying and my kid totally missed that subtext for several years. I really appreciate how the book leaves room to engage from a lot of angles (from giggling at the silliness of impatient Senor Calaveras, to comparing it to other tales about cheating Death, to "Mommy, what is the name of that bone?")
voya_k's review against another edition
5.0
Grandma Beetle is kind of too busy throwing a party to go with you, OK Senor Calavera?
shellys's review against another edition
5.0
What a delight!
Seldom do I have tears of laughter after reading a picture book! This is a delightful tale of a wise grandmother whose kindness and cleverness make her an unlikely friend.
Seldom do I have tears of laughter after reading a picture book! This is a delightful tale of a wise grandmother whose kindness and cleverness make her an unlikely friend.
octavia_cade's review against another edition
3.0
Fun picture book about counting, with the numbers presented in both English and Spanish. Anyway, as the story goes, Granny is on death's door and Death turns up to collect. He's a walking skeleton, very polite, but Granny keeps putting him off with household chores she has to do before she can shuffle off this mortal coil with him. You can guess the sort of thing - one house to sweep, two pots of tea to boil, three pounds of corn to make into tortillas and so on. And it's all very good-natured and entertaining, and the illustrations are fun, but all I can think is the little prospective readers can't count to ten but they're perfectly fine with the concept of death?
Granted, I never spend any time with children. What they grasp and at which stage of their development they grasp it is beyond me. But don't basic numbers come before "So, death is a thing and it's coming for Granny"? Not in this book! Here, kids who haven't yet learned their numbers are presumably expected to be already competent with the idea of mortality. As I said, maybe it's just me, and I can't pretend I didn't enjoy the seeming disconnect. But still, I don't remember The Very Hungry Caterpillar ending with a coffin instead of a chrysalis...
Granted, I never spend any time with children. What they grasp and at which stage of their development they grasp it is beyond me. But don't basic numbers come before "So, death is a thing and it's coming for Granny"? Not in this book! Here, kids who haven't yet learned their numbers are presumably expected to be already competent with the idea of mortality. As I said, maybe it's just me, and I can't pretend I didn't enjoy the seeming disconnect. But still, I don't remember The Very Hungry Caterpillar ending with a coffin instead of a chrysalis...
tea_rex_love's review against another edition
5.0
This is a funny story about how an abuela manages to cheat death for another year.