[Nilda] succeeds as a sociological documentary but fails to develop the heroine as a unique personality. Nor do the minor characters fare much better—with the exception of the elderly, eccentric Aunt Delia and of the Spanish-born Socialist stepfather, who preserves his anticlerical convictions and profane vocabulary until his final breath. Although somewhat reminiscent of Piri Thomas's autobiographical Down These Mean Streets … in its frank cataloguing of the sights, sounds, conflicts, and language of Spanish Harlem, the narrative is stilted and, at times, anachronistic: Such expressions as "let's split" and "disc jockey" suggest the fifties and sixties rather than the early forties—an impression supported by the Dictionary of American Slang…. Effective re-creation of reality in fiction requires more than simple fidelity to fact; the reader must become emotionally involved with the characters and their problems. Thus, Nilda's world is more vividly evoked in the expressionistic black-and-white illustrations—which, as the jacket states, "combine representational art, symbols and words"—than in the text, which attempts to depict times past in terms of present-day emotions and attitudes. (p. 153)