By Rebecca J. Gomez
Red Riding Hood remade with a boy in a red hoodie on a bike, and the thing that beats the wolf is a jar of pico de gallo.
Federico pedals across town in a red hoodie with a basket, off to Abuelo's fruit stand to make pico de gallo together. Packed in the basket: jalapeños, cebolla, limes, garlic, herbs. A wolf follows him, beats him to the stand, and takes Abuelo's place, hoping to make lunch out of Federico. Federico figures out what's going on and wins with his wits and what he's carrying. The chili peppers do the wolf in, and it's all bloodless and over fast. The story is in rhyme, in English, with Spanish words dropped in on nearly every page, and the sentence around each one tells you what it means. There's a glossary at the back and a real pico de gallo recipe after that.
Most children already know this story, and that's what makes the Spanish stick. When a child isn't working to follow the plot — a wolf is coming, and they know roughly what he'll say — there's room to notice a new word instead. The rhyme helps too. A word you half-guessed, then heard land on a rhyme, is a word you're likely to keep. And Federico wins by being smart with food from his own kitchen, which beats waiting on a woodcutter to show up.