The stories focus on Rafi and Rosi’s relationship within a musical context. A glossary at the beginning sets readers up well to understand the Spanish vocabulary, including accurate phoneticization for non-Spanish speakers. Readers learn along with Rafi and Rosi as they explore bomba, plena, and salsa in three chapters. I would not recommend this book to my friends.The fourth installment in Delacre’s early-reader series centers on the rich musical traditions of Puerto Rico, once again featuring sibling tree frogs Rafi and Rosi Coquí.

The writing was very good even though the story was disturbing. It didn’t hold my interest and was difficult to understand at times. He allies himself with the Spanish, an enemy of France, and sets off to find his family. Pierre realizes it’s a choice between his family and the Hasinai. When Spanish explorers discover Pierre living with the Hasinai, they offer to help him find his true family. He learns to love her like a mother but never forgets his true family. He is nursed to health by a Hasinai woman and lives with her tribe for many years.

The expedition goes wrong and Pierre becomes deadly ill. Pierre is offered a position on an expedition with a man named Sieur de la Salle and his men because of Pierre’s knowledge of Indian languages. The Crimson Cap by Ellen Howard is a story about how a young French boy, Pierre Talon, fights for the survival of his ill mother and starving siblings. I enjoyed reading the book even if sometimes I found the writing awkward, especially the action sequences.

Howard weaves in enough detail about daily life in the late 17th century to make the story interesting, but does not overload the tale with it. The pacing is quick and the characters are morally complex. When Spanish explorers find him living with the natives, they offer to help him find his sister and younger brothers, but this means giving up his life with the Hasinai and allying himself with an enemy of France.īased on a true story, The Crimson Cap is a finely executed piece of historical fiction for middle-grade readers. For three years he lives with the Hasinai, and he comes to love them though he never forgets his family. Only through the goodness of the Hasinai tribe does Pierre survive. But the expedition becomes lost, the leader is murdered by his own men, and Pierre falls deathly ill. And though he is just ten, he joins an expedition to find help for the failing French settlement on the Gulf Coast where he has lived for the last two years. His mother is ill and his siblings are starving. Review by Marion O’Sullivan age 11 Patricia O’Sullivan