Jose! Born to Dance By Susanna Reich and Illustrated by Raul Colon

Jose! Born to Dance By Susanna Reich and Illustrated by Raul Colon
This story was about a boy named Jose who moved from Mexico to America as a kid. Before he moves it shows the different ways of dancing that he saw and dreamt about that were part of the Mexican culture. I picked this book because I love to dance and have seen flamenco dancers before which are shown in this book. Jose was not able to speak English when he arrived and kids in his class made fun of him because of this. This encouraged him to strive harder and pursue his dreams in America. This is based on a true story of the founder of the Limon Dance Academy. It is another story about accomplishing the American dream, starting with nothing moving here and becoming successful.
The illustrations were simple but still very appealing because of a textured, grainy look. The book uses some Spanish phrases like “si” and “ole” on each page. Just enough to enjoy but not get confused as to what it means, you can pretty much figure out the translation through the context clues. I liked this book because it showed another culture besides American and the main character was a male dancer instead of a girl which is unusual. It was a refreshing change.