Eventually, Tía Lola and the children swap English and Spanish ejercicios, but the true lesson is "mutual understanding." Peppered with Spanish words and phrases, Alvarez makes the reader as much a part of the "language" lessons as the characters.
She can also cook exotic food, dance (anywhere, anytime), plan fun parties, and tell enchanting stories. Tía Lola, however, knows a language that defies words she quickly charms and befriends all the neighbors. The last thing Miguel wants, as he's trying to fit into a predominantly white community, is a flamboyant aunt who doesn't speak a word of English. When Tía Lola arrives to help the family, Miguel and his hermana, Juanita, have just moved from New York City to Vermont with their recently divorced mother. Renowned Latin American writer Alvarez has created another story about cultural identity, but this time the primary character is 11-year-old Miguel Guzmán.
The Robot King, with its mannequin's head and packed, indistinct body half-hidden beneath a long velvet jacket, cuts an oddly elegant figure, and the human faces are rendered with a sad, composed beauty. Selznick's dark, soft-textured pencil drawings enhance the narrative's elegaic air. Readers will respond deeply to this, and to the return of Ezra's speech, but they may wish for a stronger sense of closure, and for more of the lovely illustrations, too. The story ends on a suspended note Lucy and Ezra never do catch up to the Robot King, but a ferris wheel spins them skyward, where they touch the moon and catch a glimpse of their long-absent father returning home.
When she assembles a man-sized figure and inserts their mother's music box as a heart, it comes aliveand what life! Sparks fly from it, pieces that fall or break off whirl through the air, and when it escapes the attic, it leaves a trail of animated bicycles and other machines for the children to follow. Ezra, mute since his mother's death, compulsively collects small thingspebbles, bits of glass, clock parts, wires, keysthat older sister Lucy uses to craft mechanical toys. From the author of The Houdini Box (1991), a haunting, enigmatic tale of two lonely children who create something wonderful.
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