Roberto's Trip to the Top - Hardcover

John Barstow Paterson (1932 - 2013) and John B. Paterson, Jr., father-and-son authors, based this story on their own 1970s trip to Caracas, where they rode the very teleférico featured in the book. John Sr. also collaborated with his wife, Newbery Award-winning author Katherine Paterson, on The Flint Heart, as well as Consider the Lilies, Images of God,and Blueberries for the Queen. John Jr. lives in New Canaan, Connecticut.

Renato Alarcao has illustrated many children’s books, including Red Ridin’ in the Hood and Other Cuentos by Patricia Santos Marcantonio. He lives in Brazil.

Kindergarten-Grade 2—Roberto's reward for good grades is a trip with his uncle up the teleférico, or cable car, to the mountains overlooking Caracas, Venezuela. Roberto had hoped to take pictures for his father, who has stayed behind tending the store, but he drops the camera down a ravine. The disappointed but resourceful lad then asks a vendor to take a snapshot so he can share his adventure with Papá after all. The text is primarily narrative, relating what happens to Roberto, and its direct prose makes it better suited to independent reading than to reading aloud. The book uses little figurative language, but a simile comparing cable cars to spaceships nicely conveys a child's sense of wonder in new experiences. The round, cheerful faces in the illustrations highlight the simple joys found in the text. Alarcão's heavy brushstrokes also evoke the mists that hang over the tropical rain forests of Venezuela's mountains. Spanish words are sprinkled throughout, and children can use contextual clues to guess their meanings (or use the glossary). However, the writers use many phrases that are more common in Mexico than in Venezuela, such as ándale and peso. Moreover, the description of a tortilla fits the Mexican usage of this term, whereas in Venezuela the word tortilla is used to describe a fritatta. Although the book is a nice introduction to a relatively unfamiliar country, it does not accurately reflect Venezuelan Spanish.—Mary Landrum, Lexington Public Library, KY
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