Posted by Vamos: Let’s Go Eat by Raul the Third and colors by Elaine Bay (2020)
I’m currently using this book as a visual text for one of my WIPs and thought it would be a perfect one to share.
Summary: Little lobo and his friends pick up tacos, carnitas, churros, and more from food trucks to help the luchadores get ready for their big match.
What I Enjoyed
➡️ Highly Immersive: This picture book feels like a world unto itself. It is a retro graphic novel meets Richard Scarry with Latinx roots. The readability factor is super high because there are so many visual and text elements to keep you looking.
➡️ Delightful ReadAloud: English and Spanish. Fun character names. Lots of Alliteration. Punchy. Perfect for a story about hungry wrestlers!
➡️ Invites Rereads: Wrestlers + Mexican Food + Slice of Life = Feast for your eyes and ears. There’s so much story packed into every spread.
Mentor Text Moments
➡️ For Authors: Unique Narrative Structure. This slice-of-life book has a story problem and a resolution, but it does not follow the typical try-fail cycle or rule of threes. There’s a mission to get as much food and a lot of little side stories along the way that is accomplished from morning until night.
➡️ For Illustrators: Visual Pacing. There are Panels within panels, 3-, 4-, and 6-panel spreads, as well as asymmetrical spreads. However, between all the panels, there are also plenty of full page spreads as well to give us room to breathe and explore the main event.
➡️ For Illustrators: Hand-lettering is King of the Ring. The hand-lettering works on multiple levels. It adds to a sense of environment, reinforces the graphic-novel genre, as calls back to food truck signs and wrestling event ads. My favorite example is when Raul uses RUMBLE to reinforce that luchadores’s hunger is like an earthquake rocking a building’s foundation.