Armando and the Blue Tarp School

Review
By Kirkus Reviews

This affecting tale-of a plein-air schoolroom in a deeply impoverished neighborhood populated by pepenadores (trash pickers)-springs from the real deal. . . . The simplicity of the story is what lets it run deep, its bite of realism; no sermons are being delivered here, just a door thrown open to life under reduced circumstances (though Sosa’s artwork, with its look of leaded glass, conveys a benevolent quality to the proceedings). Without patronizing, Señor David defines the essence of humanitarianism, while the pepenadores, ever searching for beauty in the beast, find gold-and prize it.