I’m Hungry! / ¡Tengo hambre!
by Angela Dominguez; illus. by the author
Preschool    Holt    32 pp.    g
1/22    978-1-250-77996-0    $18.99
e-book ed.  978-1-250-86818-3    $10.99

Using an accessible conversational style similar to How Do You Say? / ¿Cómo se dice? (rev. 9/16) and How Are You? / ¿Cómo estás? (rev. 5/18)—now featuring a solicitous blue bird and a hangry orange dinosaur—Dominguez tells an entertaining, child-friendly, and mildly suspenseful story about friendship, kindness, picky eating, differing tastes, and the mollifying power of breaking bread together. While the bird offers many choices for the peckish young dinosaur to nosh, nothing sounds tasty: “‘Fish? They are my favorite.’ ‘¿Pescado? No, gracias.’ ‘How about lettuce? Or a salad?’ ‘¿Lechuga o ensalada? No.’” Though the bird’s dialogue is all in English and the dino’s is in Spanish (color-coded), the two clearly understand each other—as will young readers and listeners, who can easily take meaning from context via the simple text and the clear, personality-filled illustrations. Rewardingly, and after a close-call near-ending (à la Higgins’s We Don’t Eat Our Classmates, rev. 9/18), a just-right treat—galletas—leads to satisfaction.

From the March/April 2022 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.