Carina makes empanadas with her Tia Mimi every Saturday, but this Saturday, Tia Mimi is volunteering at the food center. She asks Carina to gather the ingredients for the empanadas. Carina is worried that she can’t do it alone. As she travels through the neighborhood gathering the ingredients, she notices how samosas and dumplings she sees in the neighborhood are similar to empanadas but different. Carina and the neighborhood come together to help those volunteering at the food center.

There seemed to be several storylines and it was hard to pick out which direction the story was going. Is the book about finding community, finding self-confidence in trying something on your own, maybe a bit of both? The different cultures represented and how we are the same, but different appeared to be one theme in the story.

The illustrations represent Tia Mimi’s diverse community and match Carina’s adventures through the neighborhood.

There is an author note at the end and a recipe for beef or chicken Puerto Rican empanadas.

When Bitsy Bat is facing her first night at a new school, she is sent off by a loving family full of encouragement. But in a classroom full of assorted other nocturnal creatures, she’s the only one used to hanging upside down, and at the painting table she’s the only one who tries to paint with her toes. Lunch and recess provide more pitfalls leading her to feel she’ll never fit in, which results in a five-star meltdown. Reluctant to return the next day, her family and teacher help her enact a plan to help everyone in class celebrate that which makes them unique, that which makes them shine. Written by an autistic author illustrator, it’s got an author’s note in the back explaining a bit about autism, including some definitions of relative terms. Autism doesn’t overtly come through within the story itself, except in Bitsy’s aversion to too-bright light and too-loud noises.

If you’ve got the original Strega Nona in your library, this makes a fine Christmas sequel, that fans of the original will enjoy. Without first knowing Strega Nona and Big Anthony from their first story, I’m not sure readers who pick this one up first will really connect them, as the character development pretty much assumes you already know them and will understand Big Anthony’s repeated urging of Strega Nona to just use her magic to accomplish the chores to prepare for Christmas. In the end, Big Anthony, known for his laziness/foolishness, proves the hero this time, as he arranges a Christmas surprise for Strega Nona.

The illustrations a soft and pretty, offering an inviting, if romanticized image of old-time live in the Appalachian mountains. The story tells of a young girl and her pa who live alone in the mountains, weaving story rugs that they take to town on market days to sell. It’s suggested that the reason Laurel makes such beautiful rugs is by they guidance of “her mama’s angel hands.” When a gloomy new neighbor moves to town with a look of loss in his eyes, Laurel recognizes it and she and her father set out to try to welcome him with their rugs but they are rebuffed. Eventually they created a design into which they poured their own tears, which spoke to the man. The gift of it seemed to help move him through his grief, and in the end he accompanies Laurel and her pa on their next visit to town.

Fans of the other Angelina Ballerina books will enjoy this one, and will be drawn to the familiar characters and illustrations, but in looking for some trait on which to recommend it for it’s own sake, I’m coming up a bit blank. It’s not a bad little story. I just can’t think of anything that makes it stand out as a must-have. It tells of Angelina and Henry off on a camping adventure with Uncle Louie. It’s a longer hike than Angelina would’ve liked, and then they still need to pitch their tents and gather firewood before they can have their campfire, but when they’re sent off to gather wood, Angelina and Henry get distracted playing until they are lost and there’s a storm, and eventually Uncle Louie comes to find them and they get back to camp and have a campfire (no explanation for where the wood came from) and dinner and all is well.