Pedro’s Yo-Yos: How a Filipino Immigrant Came to America and Changed the World of Toys
by Rob Peñas; illus. by Carl Angel
Primary    Lee & Low    40 pp.
4/24    9781620145746    $20.95

Born in 1896 under Spanish colonial rule in the Philippines, Pedro Flores immigrated to the United States as a teenager. It wasn’t until years later—after he had worked in Hawaiian pineapple fields, on steamships in the Pacific, and at a hotel in California—that he produced the first Flores yo-yo. Though Flores did not invent the toy (Peñas traces its origins back thousands of years to China), his ingenious reengineering of it led to its rise in popularity (the word yo-yo means “come back” in Tagalog). Peñas’s straightforward text is well supported by deeply saturated images that illustrate Flores’s experience as an immigrant: long hours of physically demanding labor and the dogged pursuit of education. It was with the help of a neighbor that Flores was able to start his business, and he committed to bringing his fellow kabayan into his success, as employees. Readers will delight in learning (or remembering) how to “Rock the Baby,” “Loop the Loop,” and “Walk the Dog.” An author’s note provides history about the Philippines, the yo-yo, and Flores’s life.

From the May/June 2024 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.