Juanita's mother made her a rose-colored dress for her fifth birthday, and her father gave her a white dove. In gay pictures, Leo Politi tells the story of the birthday party, and of the even more important Easter blessing of the animals.

For in the Springtime, on the Saturday before Easter Sunday, the animals of Olvera Street were blessed. Juanita carried her dove, and Señora Carmela brought her burro, laden with flowers, and Carlos led the procession with a gentle brick-red cow wearing a garland of gardenias. Goats and lambs, rabbits, roosters, and baskets of puppies and kittens followed. The procession wound slowly through Olvera Street to the Old Mission Church where the Padre blessed the animals one by one.

A colorful book, lighthearted and charming as only a Leo Politi book can be.

From the dust jacket