Marisol McDonald and the Monster / Marisol McDonald y el monstruo

Review
By Katie Bircher, The Horn Book

In Monica Brown’s Marisol McDonald and the Monster / Marisol McDonald y el monstruo, the little-girl protagonist explores words beginning with the letter M. One M word, however, scares Marisol: “Monster! / ¡Monstruo!” A “BUMP” in the night fills Marisol’s mind with worrisome questions. She comes up with a characteristically imaginative answer, and then learns the real, not-so-scary cause of the sound. The plot zips along, and Adriana Dominguez preserves the text’s tone nicely in her Spanish translation. In Sara Palacios’s mixed-media art, everything from Marisol’s “mismatched and marvelous” clothes to the lumpy family dog sparkles with color and personality.