Updated: Aug 28
A TRUE TALE WITH
A CHERRY ON TOP
Roaring Brook Press
(Mac Kids)
Pub. 3.18.2025
40 pages
Ages 4 - 8
Author: Sara Andrea Fajardo
Illustrator: Juana Martinez-Neal
Character: Alberto Salas
Overview:
" High up in the Andes mountains of Peru, agricultural scientist Alberto Salas is on a quest. A quest... for potatoes.
Up and down the Andes mountains he goes, playing an epic game of paka paka con la papa, potato hide and seek. These potatoes are special: they have the power to feed the world.
Alberto doesn't have a second to waste. The climate is changing and Alberto must find each and every one to save them before they go extinct."
Tantalizing taste of Alberto Salas Plays Paka Paka con la Papa:
"When Alberto first started collecting potatoes,
he had no maps to guide his way. So he
created his own, drawing ...
fields of prickly cacti,
risky roaring rivers,
bone-breaking cliffs.
He drew until he memorized the potato constellation.
How can anyone get lost when the world is so beautiful? thought Aberto."
And something more: In the Author's Note, Sara Andrea Fajardo explains: "I first met Alberto while working for the International Potato Center in Lima, Peru...his eyes twinkled as he told me about this adventures over the past 50 years - how he'd broken bones, been robbed, barely escaped death - all in the name of conserving the world's potato varieties. I asked him why he was so successful at potato collection, and he gave me the most wonderful answer: 'It's because I've never stopped playing.'"
In the Illustrator's Note, Juana Martinez-Neal shares: "To learn more about Alberto, I traveled to Peru to meet him and see the fields of potatoes where he does his work... Alberto's size, gaze, speech cadence, and posture all felt very familiar, like my dad was in the room too... I wanted the reader to feel the grit of dirt in the illustrations... I ended up incorporating paper collage into my mixed-media technique for this. To draw Alberto, I channeled my dad and him, and in that mixture, I found the character you meet in the book.
It is my hope that I have honored Alberto, and all who observe and care for the land. In doing so, they preserve our natural resources, carry knowledge from generation to generation, and keep culture alive."
The Glass Pyramid:
A Story of the Louvre Museum and Architect I.M. Pei
Jeanne Walker Harvey, illus. by Khoa Le. Atheneum, $19.99 (40p) ISBN 978-1-6659-5333-7
Architect I.M. Pei (1917–2019) believed that “success is a collection of problems solved,” and designing the Louvre’s now-iconic glass pyramid entrance put that philosophy to the ultimate test.
In spare, rhythmic prose and digital illustrations that combine architectural elements with vector-like precision, Walker Harvey and Le weave together Pei’s biography and the pyramid’s creation story.
When approaching the project—designed to solve a serious number of visitor flow issues—Pei understands that a purely utilitarian solution won’t suffice. The architect finds inspiration in the rock gardens of his family’s retreat in China as well as the geometric Gardens of Versailles, but the pyramid’s design proves only half the challenge.
Pei also faces fierce opposition that he approaches via patience and a partnership with Paris’s mayor, a tack that shows how enduring solutions often emerge from a confluence of expertise, imagination, and persuasion.
Back matter offers more context. Ages 4–8.
The Glass Pyramid: A Story of the Louvre Museum and Architect I. M. Pei. By Jeanne Walker Harvey. Illus. by Khoa Le May 2025. 40p. Atheneum, $19.99 (9781665953337). Gr. 1–3. 720.92
"Harvey adds another stunning title to her body of work in this lyrical picture book of an iconic piece of architecture. I. M. Pei, a renowned Chinese American architect, was commissioned by the French president to redesign the world’s largest museum, the Louvre, to make more room for art restorations and a clear entrance for visitors.
Pei kept his project a secret; he was an outsider and had faced a lifetime of discrimination and criticism for his nationality, inventiveness, and unconventional building designs.
For this project, he drew inspiration from the ancient stone pyramids of Egypt, the Buddhist retreats of China, and the geometric gardens of Versailles to create the modern glass pyramid which seems to “grow out of the courtyard.”
But it didn’t come without trials: “Success is a collection of problems solved,” and Pei exemplified this by overcoming adversity, time constraints, and skepticism at every step.
The digitally painted illustrations mimic the architecture beautifully, appearing as weightless as the pyramid itself while artfully highlighting the places and ideas that came together in Pei's ultimate design.
With helpful back matter offering even more context, this is a worthwhile addition to any picture-book collection, especially where books about architects, artists, and architecture are popular."
