Just in Case: A Trickster Tale and Spanish Alphabet Book

From three-time Pura Belpré Winner Yuyi Morales, a delightful alphabet picture book about a Día de los Muertos skeleton who must find the perfect birthday gift (or gifts!)

A 2009 Bank Street - Best Children’s Book of the Year
Winner of the 2009 Pura Belpré Medal for Illustration
A Pura Belpré Honor Book for Narrative

Yuyi Morales takes us on a new journey with Señor Calvera, the skeleton from Day of the Dead celebrations. Señor Calvera is worried. He can’t figure out what to give Grandma Beetle for her birthday. Misunderstanding the advice of Zelmiro the Ghost, Señor Calvera decides not to get her one gift, but instead one gift for every letter of the alphabet, just in case.

Una Acordéon: An accordion for her to dance to.
Bigotes: A mustache because she has none.
Cosquillas: Tickles to make her laugh . . .

. . . only to find out at the end of the alphabet that the best gift of all is seeing her friends. Morales’s art glows in this heart-warming original tale with folklore themes, a companion book to her Pura Belpré-winning Just a Minute.

In English with Spanish vocabulary words

Yuyi Morales was born in Xalpa, Mexico in 1968. She spent the first twenty-five years of her life in Mexico before moving to the United States with her husband and son. In 1997 she created a weekly children’s radio program for KP of San Francisco which ran for three years. At that time she began writing and illustrating her own children’s stories, and touring all over the country. Her books have won her countless awards and honors (including the Pura Belpre Award. the Christopher Award, and the James Addams Award.) She is the author of Niño Wrestles the World, Rudas: Niño’s Horrendous Hermanitas, Los Gatos Black on Halloween, Little Night/Nochecita, and Viva Frida.