Papá’s Magical Water-Jug Clock
by Jesús Trejo; illus. by Eliza Kinkz
Primary    Minerva/Astra    24 pp.
6/23    9781662651045    $18.99
e-book ed.  9781662651052    $11.99

Young Jesús eagerly awaits Saturdays, when he helps his father with their family’s lawn service business. Papá gives him the responsibility of taking care of the water jug, claiming that it is a magical clock and when the water runs out, it’s time to go home. Hilarity ensues when Jesús doles out cups of water to three “super-old” thirsty cats, a dog in a sweater, and some peacocks, and uses lots of water to splash his face. The jug may now be empty, but Jesús and Papá can’t yet go home: it’s only ten thirty in the morning, and they still have eleven more houses to visit. Papá confesses that the water jug is not a magical clock after all; he had tried to make the day go more quickly by making the jug into a game. But as Jesús tells Papá, they can have fun in other ways. The protagonist’s exuberance shines through in his observations of the world. Kinkz’s art—in “pencil, ink, watercolor, gouache, crayons, and a few drops of queso”—brings this story to life. The colors are bright; the line drawings are childlike and full of zany energy. The garden-themed luchador endpapers will garner lots of laughs. This book mixes humor with the touching bond between a son and his papá, and a gentle message about the preciousness of water as a resource.

From the September/October 2023 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.