¡VAMOS! Let’s Go Eat

h1 April 2nd, 2020 by jules



 

As I was reading this book for about the fifth time the other day, knowing that I wanted to write about it, I started making notes about what I was seeing. They ended up being joyous exclamations, like: “The textures! The colors! The DETAILS!”

Yes, you get all of this — and more — in Raúl the Third’s ¡VAMOS! Let’s Go Eat (Versify, March 2020), colored by Elaine Bay. This is the follow-up to last year’s ¡Vamos! Let’s Go to the Market. We revisit Little Lobo and his dog Bernabé in this bilingual adventure; this time they discover on page one that they are needed at el Coliseo right away. Lucha Libre 5000 will be taking place there that night, and we all know from the first book that Little Lobo loves wrestling — and wrestling star El Toro, who appears in this new book as well.

On their way to el Coliseo on their new courier bike (and with their friend Kooky Dooky, who has delivered this news), Little Lobo and Bernabé learn from a message in Kooky Dooky’s possession that los luchadores will need delivery assistance today before the match. As they make their way to the wrestlers, readers take in the sights of the town, including countless details on the streets. We primarily focus on a parade of food trucks and even get a definition of what one is (a “kitchen on wheels”). While the first book had some red labeling for what readers saw at the market in town, this one skips the labels — but all of the titles of the glorious food trucks can be seen. (This book will make your mouth water. For one, there’s Ji-Woo Lynx, who makes tacos “perfectly combining Mexican and Korean cuisine. Did somebody say kimchi? Little Lobo orders one of every taco from the trucks.”) There’s Toro Treats, The Painted Burro, and many more, including this beauty:

When Little Lobo gets to el Coliseo, he gets food orders from the wrestlers and heads back out to pick up the goods. It is here that we revisit the food trucks, now primarily parked in one location, and take in the sights, sounds, and many delights of Mexican culture (culinary and beyond). Head to this observant Kirkus review to read about just some of the “real-world and pop-culture references” included in the story.

The book is, if you can please excuse the pun here, a visual feast. Let’s just take a look at some art — delicious in more ways than one.

 


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“A parade of trucks slowly makes its way to el Coliseo!”
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¡VAMOS! LET’S GO EAT. Copyright © 2020 by Raúl the Third. Illustrations reproduced by permission of the publisher, Versify, an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston.





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