Review of Alberto Plays Paka Paka con la Papa

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."