My Pal, Victor / Mi Amigo, Víctor

The Bibliography
Bertrand, Diane Gonzales. 2004. My Pal, Victor/Mi Amigo, Víctor. Ill. by Robert L. Sweetland. Green Bay: Raven tree Press LLC. 0972019294

The Characters
Dominic and Víctor

The Plot
Two boys have fun just being boys despite the fact that one boy is confined to a wheelchair.

The Setting
the imaginations and memories of two young boys

The Theme
taken from the summary: "Fun and friendship overpower physical limitations."

The Style
My Pal, Victor / Mi Amigo, Víctor is written in both English and Spanish and describes how great friends these boys are despite their problems.

The Analysis
I liked this book. I like most books that are bilingual, in fact. Since I knew from reading the book jacket and the summary that one of the boys had a disability, I looked for it on every page and in every illustration, but I didn't see it. Then I showed the book to a coworker and asked her to find how one boy was handicapped and I spotted it on the very last page. Víctor is in a wheelchair!

The Cultural Markers
Illustrations: The watercolor-looking illustrations show the actions of the story in rich colors. The boys are Latino and have dark, shiny hair and tan skin. The illustrations are careful not to show Víctor's legs on any page, but it's done in a very clever way.

Text: There are not many cultural markers in the text, other than the fact that it's also written in Spanish.

The Review
Michelle Negron Bueno (Children's Literature)
My Pal, Victor/Mi amigo, Víctor is a beautiful and insightful portrait of true friendship. The book is about two boys, Victor and Dominic, who enjoy a variety of typical activities including storytelling, baseball, riddles, swimming, roller coasters, coloring, fishing, and playing in the park. Victor tells the funniest jokes, swims better than a fish, loves the wildest amusement park rides, claps the loudest for his friend at baseball games, and above all accepts Dominic just as he is. The typicality of their relationship becomes something more profound when we learn that Victor is disabled and lives his open-hearted, fully active life from a wheelchair. The writing is unique and full of movement. For example, the author describes scary ghost tales as “heart-booming stories” in which even “goose bumps get scared.” The Spanish text is paralleled throughout and is just as exciting. A bilingual vocabulary list is included. The illustrations are bright, colorful and active, underscoring the author’s message. All the elements of this book work together to provide children and adults with a story that is both heartwarming and thought provoking.

The Connection
I'd share this tale along with another story of a best friend in a wheelchair, Best Friend on Wheels by Debra Shirley, even though I find the title a little offensive. Maybe, if the kids are old enough, we could discuss the differences in each book, how one doesn't even mention the fact that the child uses a wheelchair and how the other draws attention to it.