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Reviewed by:
  • A Bike Like Sergio’s by Maribeth Boelts
  • Deborah Stevenson
Boelts, Maribeth A Bike Like Sergio’s; illus. by Noah Z. Jones. Candlewick, 2016 34p
ISBN 978-0-7636-6649-1 $15.99         R 5-9 yrs

Ruben has a sad and understandable complaint: “Every kid has a bike but me.” His friend Sergio wants them to go bike-riding together, but Ruben knows his family doesn’t have bike money. However, when a lady drops money in the grocery store, Ruben picks it up to find it’s a $100 bill—which could get him that bicycle. What will he do? Boelts, author of Those Shoes (BCCB 12/07), again paints a have-not dilemma in keen and vivid strokes, and Ruben’s sad sidelining from bike world is given full respect. The book goes beyond the predictable in Ruben’s wrestling with his demon, in that it’s not just morality but empathy (Ruben himself thinks he loses the money and then realizes how horrible that makes him feel) that prompts him to return the cash. The art, digitally assembled line and watercolor with touches of pencil, has some of Brian Karas’ homey naïveté but a texture and portraiture all its own, and the carefully chosen details of school, grocery, and home backgrounds effectively set the stage. Sure to elicit discussion among kids, this is a morality play that strikes at the heart.

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