Digging for Words

August 10, 2020
Spotlighting José Alberto Gutiérrez, who founded the first library in his Bogotá barrio by rescuing books from the trash, this moving tale details the power and pleasure of books, with a portion of the proceeds benefitting Gutiérrez’s foundation, La Fuerza de las Palabras. Employing the present tense, Kunkel absorbs readers with graceful prose that seamlessly incorporates Spanish, centering two Josés: one is a child who loves the library, one is the nighttime garbage collector who established it. With its small text size and elevated diction, the prose may initially intimidate, but paragraphs prove engaging (“The day stretches out/ before him, like the streets,/ like the hills”). Stylized digital illustrations by Escobar richly enhance the nonfiction narrative, and an author’s note offers more about Gutiérrez as well as selected online sources. Ages 4–8.

August 14, 2020

PreS-Gr 2-This is a story of literacy and two Jos�s, both look forward to Saturday. On that day, the older Jos�, a garbage collector who carefully gathers books that have been discarded, will open the doors to his collection and share it with the children of their barrio, including the young boy, Jos�. The lyrical text weaves together the daily routines of both Jos�s, showing elements of their day in Bogot�, Colombia, and the scenes that play out in their imaginations when they discover a new world inside a book. The digitally painted illustrations capture the joy of anticipation and discovery as well as loving details of the barrio of La Nueva Gloria, where there was no library until 2000. An author's note expands on the true story that inspired this book, as well as suggesting sources for more information about Guti�rrez. An inviting and generous story that will be a pleasure to read aloud. VERDICT Recommended, particularly for fans of books such as Anika A. Denise's Planting Stories, also illustrated by Escobar, and as a city-set complement to Jeanette Winter's Biblioburro.-Amanda Foulk, Sacramento P.L.

Copyright 2020 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2020
Preschool-G In Bogot�, Columbia, young Jos� rides his bike to school, tries to listen to his teacher, and plays f�tbol with his friends, but in his heart, he is longing for Saturday. Nearby, another Jos� awakens early and goes to work. Driving his garbage truck through a wealthier area, he sifts through junk and finds treasures: discarded books. On Saturday morning, young Jos� and other neighborhood children run to their library, a room in older Jos�'s house. They browse happily among piles of rescued books and each chooses one to take home. An appended note provides more information about Jos� Guti�rrez, whose actions inspired the story. This amiable picture book offers children glimpses of Colombia as well as a role model who values books and enjoys sharing them with others. Sprinkled with a few Spanish words, Kunkel's concise text is effective in weaving a story around the man's life. Escobar, a Colombian artist who lives in Bogot�, contributes a series of lively digital illustrations. A satisfying picture book, simultaneously published in a Spanish edition, Rescatando Palabras.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2021
Kunkel and Escobar (illustrator of Planting Stories, rev. 1/19) present the lives of "two Joses." One is a child, known as Little Jose, living in La Nueva Gloria barrio in Colombia; the other is his neighbor, Senor Jose, the real-life Jose Alberto Gutierrez, whose love of literacy inspired him to construct a community library at the turn of the twenty-first century. While the city of Bogota sleeps, Senor Jose, a trash collector, uses his route to look for "hidden treasure...books!" Kunkel's implied metaphor -- one person's trash is another's treasure -- neatly structures this picture-book biography. Senor Jose rescues discarded books, and Little Jose can't wait to read them on Saturdays when the doors to "Paradise" (i.e., Gutierrez's community library) open wide. Escobar's spacious digital illustrations alternate single pages (including characters' side-by-side perspectives), spot images, and double-page spreads, whose muted cool blue tones and predominant vertical lines offer sweeping panoramic scapes of Bogota's streets and silhouetted mountains. Some of the images reflect readers' imaginary worlds (references to One Hundred Years of Solitude, Anna Karenina, and The Little Prince), capturing the unique experience that literature offers the mind. An author's note, "Featured Books," and websites are appended.

(Copyright 2021 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

January 1, 2021
Kunkel and Escobar (illustrator of Planting Stories, rev. 1/19) present the lives of "two Jos�s." One is a child, known as Little Jos�, living in La Nueva Gloria barrio in Colombia; the other is his neighbor, Se�or Jos�, the real-life Jos� Alberto Guti�rrez, whose love of literacy inspired him to construct a community library at the turn of the twenty-first century. While the city of Bogot� sleeps, Se�or Jos�, a trash collector, uses his route to look for "hidden treasure...books!" Kunkel's implied metaphor -- one person's trash is another's treasure -- neatly structures this picture-book biography. Se�or Jos� rescues discarded books, and Little Jos� can't wait to read them on Saturdays when the doors to "Paradise" (i.e., Guti�rrez's community library) open wide. Escobar's spacious digital illustrations alternate single pages (including characters' side-by-side perspectives), spot images, and double-page spreads, whose muted cool blue tones and predominant vertical lines offer sweeping panoramic scapes of Bogot�'s streets and silhouetted mountains. Some of the images reflect readers' imaginary worlds (references to One Hundred Years of Solitude, Anna Karenina, and The Little Prince), capturing the unique experience that literature offers the mind. An author's note, "Featured Books," and websites are appended. Lettycia Terrones

(Copyright 2021 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

Starred review from July 1, 2020
The story of Jos� Alberto Guti�rrez, a garbage collector who built a library for his neighborhood in the city of Bogot�, Colombia, out of books he collected on his route through the wealthier neighborhoods of the city. Proving the old saying that one person's trash is another person's treasure, Guti�rrez searched "the household trash for hidden treasure...books!" Caught up in the first book he found long ago--Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy--and read over and over again and realizing the strength to be found in words, he eventually created a library out of his findings. In parallel, the book tells the story of a fictional boy, also named Jos�, who counts the days until it is Saturday, when he and the other children in the neighborhood can enter Paradise--Guti�rrez's library. Illustrator Escobar beautifully captures the distinctive architecture of a working-class neighborhood in Bogot� as well as its multiethnic and varied inhabitants. Readers will be transported through the artwork into the settings of some of the books mentioned, from the ballrooms of faraway Russia through "the magical village" of Macondo, with its yellow butterflies, and on to Treasure Island and the Little Prince's planet. In the aftermatter, readers learn that today Guti�rrez also directs a foundation he created that "provides reading materials to schools, organizations, and libraries across Colombia." The inspiring story of a man who believes in the power of books and the importance of community. (Picture book/biography. 4-8)

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