Miguel’s Brave Knight

This iconographic-animated adaptation of the 2017 children’s book featuring illustrations by Raúl Colón and short vignette poems by Margarita Engle tells a fictionalized version of Don Quixote author Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra’s upbringing. Narrated by Thom Rivera and featuring a strumming guitar soundtrack, the segments include "Happiness," "Stories" (in which young Miguel acts out plays in his "fanciful world of brave deeds"), and "Hunger," touching on the family’s troubles when Miguel’s shifty gambling father is sent to debtor’s prison and his mother loses "furniture, silverware…hope." The boy’s imagination is depicted through images of adventure populated with knights, giants, and dragons, and he is dismayed when books designated as evil are burned. Finally, in "A New Life," an older Cervantes is published in a book with "pages shaped like open doorways." Featuring a read-along option, extras include author’s, illustrator, historical, and biographical notes segments. Serving up a poignant imagining of the young life of a literary icon, this is recommended. Aud: E, P. (J. Williams-Wood)