I Pledge Allegiance by Pat Mora and Libby Martinez (review)

Just as Libby’s class is learning the Pledge of Allegiance, her great-aunt Lobo passes her citizenship exam and is preparing to recite the Pledge at the courthouse ceremony. Libby’s teacher acknowledges the importance of the event and tasks Libby with memorizing the challenging words well enough to lead the class. Of course, she’s a success, and she’s allowed to stand beside Aunt Lobo and join in her recitation before the judge. There’s little attempt here either to parse the meaning of the Pledge (“indivisible,” according to Libby’s teacher, “means that there are fifty states, but we are all one country”) or to trace the steps toward citizenship; mostly, this feel-good tale is Mora and Martinez’s mother/daughter tribute to their own aunt Lobo, who immigrated to the United States from Mexico and became a citizen in her late seventies. There is, however, useful repetition for listeners who are committing the Pledge to memory, with the full text appearing on both endpapers and three times within the text. Barton’s cozy illustrations incorporate lots of red-white-blue, both in the ubiquitous flags and Libby and Lobo’s patriotic clothing, but also more subtly in hues slightly deviating from the flag’s colorway. Stippling and blending softens the edges of the loosely outlined figures, and the excitement and support of the community shine vividly though facial expressions and body language. A closing note introduces listeners to Aunt Lobo and briefly remarks on the amendment of Francis Bellamy’s original text.