Training Day: El Toro And Friends

(Paperback)

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Description

"Bursting with imagination and creativity! Your kids will go loco for El Toro!" Jeff Kinney, #1 New York Times bestsellingauthor of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series

From New York Times bestselling, three-time Pura Belpr Awardwinning author-illustrator Ral the Third,Training Day finds El Toro preparingfor his wrestling match in Spanish and English in this graphic-novel-style El Toro & Friends paperback readerfrom theEisner-nominated World of Vamos!

Little Lobo introduced readers to his wrestling hero El Toro in Vamos! Lets Go to the Market! Now El Toro is off on his own adventures in this early reader graphic novel series!

Getting out of bed isn't always easy, especially for Mexican wrestling star El Toro. But his coach, Kooky Dooky, knows that its important for the wrestler to stay in shape and keep trainingeven when he doesn't feel like it.

Can Kooky Dooky raise El Toros spirits and get him to practice before his next big wrestling match

With unique, detailed illustrations and easy Spanish and English vocabulary words, sports fans and comic book fans alike will fall in love with El Toro on his training dayadventures in this fun early reader graphic novel.

Reviews

"Bursting with imagination and creativity! Your kids will go loco for El Toro!" -- Jeff Kinney, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series

"In typical Vamos! style, a vibrant world bursts to life on every page, filled with movement and a detailed host of cartoon characters, though text and images are simplified to accommodate beginning readers. Ral offers a lesson in visual literacy, utilizing speech bubbles and panels in addition to traditional narration." -- Booklist (starred review)

"Simple sentences and recognizable--yet entirely fresh and original--plot structures set up young readers for accomplishment. Visual and linguistic whirls and twirls match the fast-paced tempo of lucha libre, serving up dazzling Chicano English.... Reward[s] attentive eyes and ears with endless detail and inside jokes." -- Horn Book (starred review)

"A generous touch of giddy surrealism continues to make Ral the Third's faunal milieu a destination, lovingly detailed in frenetic compositions and Bay's SweeTart-hued digital colorization. Exercise and toilet cleaning are rarely this much fun." -- Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books (starred review)

"As in the World of Vamos! books, the creator, alongside colorist Elaine Bay, utilizes comics-style layouts and an eye-catching, lightly faded color palette.... lively banter and humorous illustrations make for an absorbing early reader." -- Publishers Weekly

"The unstoppable Ral the Third brings his border barrio to rip-roaring life with plenty of humor, embedded Spanish, and Chicano cultural references.... Comic-book and lucha libre fans alike will not tap out of this semibilingual smackdown." -- Kirkus Reviews

Author Bio

Ral the Third is the New York Times bestselling, three-time Pura Belpr Award-winning author-illustrator of Vamos! Let's Go to the Market, Vamos! Let's Go Eat, Vamos! Let's Cross the Bridge, and the rest of the World of Vamos! series. He is also the illustrator of Schneider Family Book Award honoree Stuntboy, in the Meantime and Stuntboy, In-Between Time, both written by Newbery Honor winner Jason Reynolds, as well as the Lowriders series, written by Cathy Camper. Ral was born in El Paso, Texas, and grew up going back and forth between El Paso and Ciudad Jurez, Mxico. He now proudly lives in Medford, Massachusetts, with his collaborator and fellow New York Times bestselling artist, Elaine Bay, and their son, Ral the Fourth.