(The Spanish edition of Tío and Tío: The Ring Bearers. Review is of the English edition.)
The picture-book debut of Emmy Award-winning TV host and producer Ross Mathews (The Drew Barrymore Show, RuPaul’s Drag Race) and his husband, Dr. Wellinthon García-Mathews, is the story of young brothers Evan and Andy, who are traveling from the U.S. to their tíos’ (uncles’) wedding in Mexico. Their mami and papi explain the duties the boys will have as ring bearers (which the boys amusingly misinterpret as “ring bears”), and their mami encourages them to practice their Spanish, which she grew up speaking in the Dominican Republic.
In Puerto Vallarta, “Todo es diferente.” The air is “thick and humid and smelled like sweet flowers.” The family settles in at the hotel, however, and Papi somewhat riskily asks the boys to hide the rings somewhere safe until Tío Ross and Tío Welly’s wedding.
The boys then dance with family and friends at the pre-wedding party and meet flower girl Drew, clearly modeled after Drew Barrymore, who was the authors’ real-life flower girl and wrote the foreword to the book, but is a young girl in the story. Drew “wore pigtails and had a giant, slightly crooked smile that somehow made her even more adorable,” we read. The authors are clearly giving a nod to their friend—but it’s an oddly worded observation given the boys’-perspective narration. Would boys of that age, no matter their orientation, really think of a girl peer as “adorable”?
That night, the boys worry about all that could go wrong at the wedding, but the slightly older Evan reassures Andy. A practical joke with their parents before the ceremony further breaks the tension. At the wedding, in front of everyone, the boys proudly do their job, then enjoy the reception with parents, tíos, flower girl, and other familia and friends.
The book echoes earlier titles Uncle Bobby’s Wedding and My Uncle’s Wedding in exploring the experiences of nephews/nieces at their uncles’ nuptials. and the “ring bear” joke was also made back in 2016’s The Flower Girl Wore Celery, about a girl at her aunt’s wedding to another woman. The Mexican setting and Latine cultural context of Tío and Tío, however, adds originality, as does the show of sibling support and cooperation. (The children in the other books do not have siblings.)
The story is on the wordy side, and some of the vocabulary (“simultaneously,” “empowering,” “begrudgingly,” “exasperated”) seems advanced for the target age range (4 to 8 years, per the publisher), but the book is likely to find fans among families whose identities overlap those of the characters in one or more ways.
