Bon Voyage, Mister Rodriguez by Christiane Duchesne - NO

Bon Voyage, Mister Rodriguez by Christiane Duchesne, illustrated by Francois Thisdale.  PICTURE BOOK Pajama Press, 2019.  $19.  9781772780895  

BUYING ADVISORY: EL (K-3) – NO  

AUDIENCE APPEAL: AVERAGE  

A group of kids like to keep their eye on the peculiar Mr. Rodriguez.  He is always doing crazy things such as floating down the street holding a dove on a string or sitting on a piano.  The adults in the community can’t seem to see Mr. Rodriguez, but the kids wake up every morning and seek him out.  Until one morning he disappears.  They write a message in the sand saying goodbye to him.  

I read this with my ten-year-old son and he turned to me and said, “This book is dumb”.  Maybe I don’t have an imaginative enough child to appreciate the magical story, but I’m unsure myself what the point of the book was.  I did enjoy the amazing life-like illustrations.  The story was lost on us though.  

Reviewer, C. Peterson