Lety Out Loud by Angela Cervantes

Abstract

Reviewed by: Lety Out Loud by Angela Cervantes Deborah Stevenson, Editor Cervantes, Angela Lety Out Loud. Scholastic, 2019 [208p] Trade ed. ISBN 978-1-338-15934-9 $16.99 E-book ed. ISBN 978-1-338-15936-3 $10.99 Reviewed from galleys Ad Gr. 3-6 Fifth grade is over, and Lety is excited about starting her summer camp experience at the Furry Friends Animal Shelter. She’s hoping, despite her shyness about her English, to land the position of shelter scribe, creating writeups for the animals to personalize them to prospective adopters, but she’s dismayed when she has to share that position with grumpy Hunter. Their friends propose a contest—the scribe whose descriptions get the most pets adopted wins—to determine who keeps the role, but Lety begins to wonder if she’s underestimated Hunter, both as a writer and as a person. Mexican-American Lety, with her desire to graduate from the English Language Learner program and her yearning for a dog, is a highly relatable protagonist, and the notion of a summer camp at an animal shelter is [End Page 200] irresistibly appealing. Aside from Lety’s feelings, though, there’s not much reality in the situation, between the implausible and idyllic shelter, Hunter’s abrupt shift from foe to friend, and, of course, Lety’s final acquisition of the dog she had her eye on from the start. Cervantes nonetheless writes with kindness and accessibility that gives her story a quick payoff for readers at a variety of skill levels, especially if they’re animal lovers. Copyright © 2019 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois