Lakas and the Manilatown Fish

Review
By The Horn Book

This first-ever bilingual English-Tagalog story set in the U.S.’ is as elaborately staged as a Disney 42nd Street musical—but within shot of The Lion King as entertainment, and a whole lot more authentic. . . . kids captured by the loopy story and the rollicking, high-colored, bang-bang pictures will get the idea without the orientation: that’s the charm of the book. . . . This is the rare wish-fulfillment fantasy that teaches no lesson, solves no problem; what puts it over the top, though, is the human element—like the silhouetted figures of Lakas and his daddy walking along the street with a bounce, hand in hand.