¡Vamos!: Let’s Go to the Market! by Raúl the Third (review)

Little Lobo and his dog Bernabé are off to the market, not to shop, but to deliver items stored in their warehouse to vendors at the Mercado. Their list, a mix of English and Spanish, is eclectic, ranging from shoe polish to clothespins to cordones de oro (golden laces), and they load up their wooden wagon and head into town. They—and readers—are immediately immersed in the jolly throng of anthropomorphized critters that frequent the marketplace. Almost hidden in the bustle is a newspaper vendor hawking a periódico with the headline, “el Toro loses mask!” Sharp-eyed readers will spot the unlucky luchador riding on the back of a motorcycle with his face hidden by a paper bag, and here the fun begins. As Lobo and Bernabé make their deliveries—which get used in delightfully unexpected ways—the unmasked luchador keeps turning up in person and in pop cultural images, steadily leading starstruck Lobo to an encounter with this lucha libre hero at the end of a perfect work day. The rampant zaniness of Raúl the Third’s signature artwork (perhaps best known from Camper’s Lowriders series, beginning with Lowriders in Space, BCCB 1/15) is ever so slightly streamlined and colorized in this outing for a younger crowd, but none of the pleasure is lost in transition. Although primary and middle-graders may be the target audience, adults who sneak a peek will tease out Easter eggs such as the poster for “Un Perro Andaluz” playing at the Buñuel cinema. An appended glossary translates most, but not all, Spanish vocabulary into English for those who simply need to know, but the grab bag of bilingual terms embedded in dialogue, signage, and stray scraps of text invite all readers to have a grand time latching onto what they know and figuring out what they don’t.