Pura’s Cuentos: How Pura Belpré Reshaped Libraries with Her Stories

In this moving profile of Pura Belpré (1899–1982), the first Puerto Rican librarian in New York City and the first New York librarian to offer bilingual story times, Pimentel offers a rhythmic, well-paced narrative drawing from Belpré’s own writing. Spanish intertwines a narrative studded with parallelism and repetition, as Belpré arrives in New York City, inspired by her Abuela’s cuentos and intent on making the library more accessible to Latinx children: “Oh, Pura can tell a story! She hisses... murmurs... roars./ Children lean forward. They giggle... shiver... sigh./ She is allowed to tell only stories that have been printed in a/ book. That’s the rule.... But Pura knows that not all the stories worth telling are in/ books.” Morales’s digital art shifts in dynamic, near-kaleidoscopic formations, defying perspective in absorbing spreads throughout this glowing, elegantly constructed celebration of a literary luminary. Back matter includes an author’s note, a selected bibliography, and other sources. Ages 4–8. (Sept.)