• Booklist Reviews : Booklist Reviews 2005 April #2
  Gr. 8-11. Carlson follows up Cool Salsa (1994) with another bilingual collection of poems that appear in both Spanish and English. Included are many well-known writers, such as Gary Soto and Luis J. Rodriguez, who appeared in the first volume, as well as emerging poets. Divided into loose categories--language, identity, neighborhoods, amor, family moments, "victory"--the poems often speak about the complex challenges of being bicultural: "I'm a grafted flower that didn't / take, a Mexican without being one, / an American without feeling like one," writes Raquel Valle Senties. Among the new writers are a few high-school students, and teens of all backgrounds will easily relate to the young authors' fury over stereotypes: "I'm surrounded by a society that expects nothing of me / other than to become a regular, tired housewife," writes student Ivette Alvarez. Most poems are translated by the poets themselves, and many are written in an inventive blend of languages, which English speakers will easily follow with help from the appended glossary. Powerful and immediate, these are voices students and teachers will want to share. ((Reviewed April 15, 2005)) Copyright 2005 Booklist Reviews.

Lori Marie Carlson is an editor, translator, and novelist who has concentrated on bringing Latino literature to American audiences. She is the editor of Cool Salsa: Bilingual Poems on Growing Up Latino in the United States and of Sol a Sol: Original and Selected Bilingual Poems.