I love anything to do with Carlos Santana, so of course I loved this story. It is a biography, so it is more difficult to work into a curriculum, but I think it did an excellent job talking about his life and focusing on his dreams, struggles, and culture.

Born in Autlán de Navarro, Mexico, in the late 1940s to a mother named Josefina and a musician father named José, Carlos Santana was not always the musical legend he is today. He struggled with distance from his father when his father went to other cities to make money playing music. He struggled with a rapturous love for music and a desire to please his father by playing the violin, with a simultaneous desire to play his own way. Inspired by Black blues legends like Ray Charles and B.B. King, Carlos diverged from his father’s traditional Mexican and mariachi band roots to rock the electric guitar, though he would never truly leave those roots behind. After moving to the U.S., Carlos would find further inspiration in African and Cuban music. Though there were disagreements and discontents in his life, Carlos Santana is a figure of resilience and the power of having strongly held values. This book is GORGEOUS. I loved Rudy Gutierrez’s illustrations and found them a perfect match for the text, which is careful to impart the essence of Santana’s early life, but not overly detailed. ( )

This book had context about Santana's life that is not seen in other books. The author Golio amazingly writes about the famous musician that is known for being one of the best Mexican musicians. The only thing is that my personal taste was not satisfied with the illustrations, I found them overbearing and taking away the beauty of the words and actually reading. ( )

This is the childhood story of the musician, Carlos Santana and his journey to find his own unique sound. Gary Golio paints a clear picture of a young Santana growing up in Mexico as the son of a very famous mariachi player who teaches him how to play the violin. Although he tries his best, his young heart isn't in it and it's not until he discovers the electric guitar that his heart and his hands become one. Santana began to apotheosize American Blues musicians like Muddy Waters, BB King, and Jimi Hendrix! He feels torn. His strong bond with his Papa and his quest for his own musical identity help him to create his own "new sound" which mixes his cultural heritage with the American blues he loved. The rich folkloric images by illustrator Rudy Guiterrez capture the spirit of Santana's music and we are swept up, suffused in bursts of color and light following the path of a young man who dared to go his own way. ( )

Like Santana's dazzling riffs this book is just as electric. The bright neon images bring to life the story of Carlos Santana, following him from small boy in Jalisco to Woodstock 1969. It shows how he was taught by his father the traditions of Mariachi and Mexican music. However, his heart was pulled to American Blues and the electric guitar. He never left his roots entirely behind though, and was drawn to Afro Cuban and another music not traditionally in the realm of the electric guitar. There is more information about Carlos Santana and notes from the author at the end of the book. ( )