(3) K-3 Illustrated by Fabian Negrin. Negrin illustrates the final, poetic paragraph of Darwin's The Origin of Species in sensitively rendered watercolor paintings accented with wax and pencil. He effectively varies the focus of attention--from landscapes to microscopic details, from a boy exploring for worms to a bird's-eye view from a tree branch. A beautiful, mysterious, and compelling package. Glos.

Reviewer: Miriam Lang Budin

(4) K-3 Illustrated by Fabian Negrin. After his son Jesus's birth, Joseph worries about being a father to God--the Father of all men. At the end of his long internal monologue, Joseph decides that all he can offer Jesus is a helping hand. Although new parents may empathize with Joseph's sense of helplessness, there is little for children here. Negrin's ethereal paintings are appropriately luminous.

Reviewer: Maeve Visser Knoth

(4) K-3 Illustrated by Fabian Negrin & Fabian Negrin. Juanita doesn't have a gift for the Baby Jesus, but on Christmas Eve, an angel statue tells her to gather weeds. Miraculously the weeds turn into "the most beautiful...scarlet-red flowers she had ever seen." The storytelling isn't particularly compelling and some of the pages are heavy with text, but the luminous illustrations are effective. An author's note gives some background to the legend. Concurrently published in Spanish. Glos.

Reviewer: Tim Wadham

(3) K-3 Translated by Kristen Keating. Illustrated by Fabian Negrin & Fabian Negrin. The translation of The Miracle of the First Poinsettia into Spanish is superior to the original English edition. This story of a Christmas Eve miracle seems more at home in Spanish, and the lyricism inherent in the Spanish text better matches the luminous art. Concurrently published in English.

Reviewer: Tim Wadham

(3) K-3 Translated by Dolores Prida. Illustrated by Fabian Negrin. This is a Spanish edition of Alvarez's The Secret Footprints, a retelling based on a Dominican folktale about a tribe of people whose feet point backward so as not to reveal their location. The translation is nicely done, and the language provides a real sense of the storytelling tradition. The vibrantly colored illustrations give the tale both a sense of place and a dreamlike quality.

Reviewer: Tim Wadham

(4) K-3 Illustrated by Fabian Negrin. Stylized, folk-primitive paintings richly illustrate this story of a talismanic bone pendant carved into moon shape by an Argentine gaucho. Fashioned with stone and silver into a necklace, it passes from a grandmother to many other women, and "perhaps to you," the reader, who now knows of its origin. The images in the poetic text, though occasionally labored, are often evocative.

Reviewer: Frieda F. Bostian

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Fabian Negrin. Based on Dominican folklore, this dreamy story tells how a bold ciguapa almost reveals her tribe's whereabouts. Ciguapas are beautiful creatures who live underwater and hunt for food on land at night; their feet are on backwards, so their footprints never give their location away. Illustrations in a rich blue-green palette bring out the magical realism in this well-told tale.

Reviewer: Pamela McCuen

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Fabian Negrin. In an elegant tale based on the Greek mythological character Pandora, a witch grants a young couple their wish to have a child. Dora's protective parents place tokens of everything that is evil and sad into a box so their child will never know unhappiness. Dora eventually opens the box, learning the compassion that accompanies knowledge of evil as well as goodness. Spare, richly hued pictures suit a story that is both fairy tale and fable.

Reviewer: Carolyn Shute