Just in Case. A Trickster Tale and Spanish Alphabet Book

Just in Case. A Trickster Tale and Spanish Alphabet Book by Yuyi Morales
Illustrated by Yuyi Morales
Published by Roaring Brook Press
2008

     Señor Calavera couldn't wait to get to Grandma Beetle's birthday party. He had ironed his tie, put on cologne, dusted his hat (which now sits on top of his cover of A Hundred Years of Solitude -a hint of the magic to come), and prepped his bike.  On his way there, he heard "a moan from beyond the grave."  It was Zelmiro the Ghost, a friendly looking ghost of an old man.  Zelmiro reminded Señor Calavera that he needed to bring Grandma Beetle a gift.  "You surely must know, the best present to give a friend is the thing she would love the most."  So Señor Calavera packs up un Acordeón (an accordion), Bigotes (a mustache), Cosquillas (tickles), and un CHiflido (a whistle).  Zelmiro celebrated Señor Calavera's choices but he wondered out loud, "are they what Grandma Beetle would love the most?"
     Señor Calavera ends up collecting a gift for each letter of the alphabet -except the Z- but it has taken him so long that he's now late for the party and in his rush, he ends up crashing his bike and dropping all the presents. He couldn't believe his misforture. He had no more time and no presents at all...except for the person Grandma Beetle had loved the most: Grandpa Zelmiro!
     Just in Case is a delightful trickster tale.  Yuyi Morales has done a wonderful job of incorporating a bilingual alphabet book into the thread of a truly entertaining tale.  The illustrations are gorgeous, filled with traditional Mexican images (starting with Señor Calavera, and complete with the classic Mexican lottery game) and plenty of fun details to savor over multiple reads.  And you gotta love the ending!
     
   

Marisol McDonald Doesn't Match / Marisol McDonald No Combina

Marisol McDonald Doesn't Match / Marisol McDonald No Combina by Monica Brown
Illustrated by Sara Palacios
Spanish translation by Adriana Domínguez
Published by Children's Book Press
2011
Pura Belpré Illustrator Honor Books 2012

     Marisol McDonald doesn't match, that's what everybody tells her.  She has brown skin and red hair, wears green polka dots with purple stripes, and likes to write part of her name in print and part in cursive.  She's Peruvian-Scottish-American and when she speaks she likes to also mix English and Spanish.  She's happy the way she is, but others keep complaining, so Marisol decides to try to match, to combine her clothes and conform.  Thankfully, one of her teachers let's Marisol know that she's loved just the way she is.
     Marisol McDonald Doesn't Match / Marisol McDonald No Combina is a delightful story about loving yourself for who you truly are without trying to fit into any mold.  The story is written in English and Spanish (wonderful translation) and one of my favorite parts in when she mixes the two languages, and you can see the text mirrored in both side of the page -on the left in English with some words in Spanish, on the right in Spanish with some words in English.  Palacios' illustrations are beautiful and fresh.  Great book to open up conversations about multiculturalism in the classroom.

Say Something, Perico

Say Something, Perico by Trudy Harris
Illustrated by Cecilia Rebora
Published by Millbrook Press
2011


     Little Perico, the parrot, lives at the pet store.  A woman came to the store, saw Perico and asked if he could talk. She tried to get him to say "Polly-wants-a-cracker", but Perico was thristy so he said "Agua."  Unfortunately, neither the pet store owner, nor the woman, spoke Spanish and they thought he said "opera."  The woman, who loved opera, bought the parrot thinking it would accompany her to a performance that same evening.  As expected, the trip to the opera was a disaster, and Perico was returned to his cage at the pet store.
     The scene repeats with different potential owners.  Everybody misunderstands Perico because they don't know he's speaking Spanish. So he's always returned to the store. Perico, afraid he'll never find a home, starts practicing at night all the English phrases that people have wanted him to say.  Finally, a boy comes to the store and hears Perico speaking English and Spanish and, being bilingual himself, finds him to be the perfect pet.
     Say Something, Perico is an entertaining and thought provoking picture book.  I love the fact that at the end of the story, Perico is valued for being a bilingual bird.  But the road to that resolution was heartbreaking at times, especially when he's called dumb by one of the people at the store, and we see the bird lowering his head, sad and feeling unwanted.  At the end, though, there is a happy ending, and Perico is now considered a "clever bird," by the boy's mother.

     

Good-bye, Havana! Hola, New York!

Good-bye, Havana! Hola, New York! by Edie Colón
Illustrated by Raúl Colón

    In Good-bye, Havana! Hola, New York!, Edie Colón tells the story of a 6 year old cuban girl named Gabriella. The story is basically autobiographical, but Colón explains on a note at the end of the book that she decided to use a different name for the main character "so that I could have some distance from my story."
     Fidel Castro has recently taken control of Cuba and under the banner of the Revolution, the government has taken control of all private property, including Gabriella's family restaurant.  In search of a better life, Gabriella's parents move to New York.  They travel ahead to get everything ready for their new life, while she stays with her grandparents in Havana.  When her father comes back to take her to the Bronx, Gabriella must face the pain of leaving her adored grandparents behind, not knowing when and if she'll see them again.  During the rest of the book, we see Gabriella dealing with the lifestyle changes after the move to New York. It is colder, more urban, she's far from her beloved ocean, and she doesn't speak the language. Throughout the school year, Gabriela makes new friends and learns to speak English. And at the end, she's reunited with her grandparents. The whole family is together again, but this time in their new home in the Bronx.
     Good-bye, Havana! Hola, New York! is a good book to share in the multicultural classroom. As an ESL teacher, I know my English Language Learner students will relate to Gabriela's struggles, feelings, and fears.  The story uses a lot of phrases in Spanish with an English translation immediately following (I found that since the phrases were long, the translations seemed to interrupt the flow of the story). The illustrations by Raúl Colón are simply beautiful, with a warmth of color that immediately brought me back to the Caribbean coast.  This book would also be a great mentor text to introduce memoirs. 

Mirror

Mirror by Jeannie Baker
2011

     Mirror is a wordless picture book.  But it is so much more than that.  There are two stories told simultaneously, one in Australia and one in Morocco.  The layout of the book is captivating and hard to describe without an image:

     We follow a day in the life of two boys in completely different parts of the world.  Their lives seem to be completely different, until page by page we see cross overs and realize that they have more in common than we thought at first.  The Morrocan boy's family has weaved a rug which we later find out the Australian boy's family purchases.  The ending images show us how closely linked we all are by technology and imagination.
     Mirror is a work of art.  The collage illustrations are beautiful, but it's the overal design of the book that really makes it stand out.  It's a beautiful book to share in the multicultural classroom and offers many possible lesson on globalization and text innovations where two students could write each of the two stories.

The Cazuela That the Farm Maiden Stirred

The Cazuela That the Farm Maiden Stirred by Samantha R. Vamos
Illustrated by Rafael Lopez
2011

     The farm maiden is stirring a pot to make rice pudding, arroz con leche.  She needs many ingredients and the farm animals are coming to help her.  The goat churns the cream to make the butter, the cow gives her milk, the duck buys the sugar at the supermarket, the donkey plucked the lime that the hen grated and the farmer planted the rice.  Then they all had a party while the arroz con leche cooked in the pot, and since they were all distracted, they forgot to stir it and it almost boiled over.  They all rushed to help the farm maiden and stirred together until the pudding was ready.
     The Cazuela That the Farm Maiden Stirred is a cumulative tale on the footsteps of "The House That Jack Built."   The nouns that were first introduced in English, appear the second time around in Spanish; the butter becomes mantequilla, the pot is a cazuela, the cow is a vaca, the farm maiden is a campesina.  This book is a joyful celebration of bilingualism.  The way the second language is introduced makes it accessible to Spanish language learners as well as monolingual readers.  As the story builds, so does the musicality of the language until it boils over, just like the arroz con leche, into a delightful fiesta.  The vibrant colors of Lopez's desert pair wonderfully with the joy of Vamos's tale.  At the end of the book, there's a recipe for Arroz con Leche as well a glossary. This is one of my favorite bilingual books.

What a Tantrum! Vaya Rabieta!

What a Tantrum! / Vaya rabieta! by Mireille d'Allance
Illustrated by Mireille d'Allance
Originally published in 2000 in French as Grosse colere
2004

     Roberto has had a bad day.  He has lost his tennis match, broken his racket and is walking inside his house with tons of mud in his shoes.  When his father asks him to take off his tennis shoes, he kicks them off as hard as he can.  And when he finds out there's spinach for dinner, he's had enough! "Are you kidding?"  His father sends him to his room to calm down.  But upstairs, Roberto's anger builds up, until a red monster comes out of his mouth and starts destroying everything in his room. When the red monster ends up breaking one of his favorite toys, Roberto tries to stop it.  While cleaning up the mess the "monster" had done, Roberto realizes he has calmed down and he's ready to go back downstairs to have dinner with his dad.
     The idea of Roberto's anger spilling out and becoming  monster is very interesting.  I can see the story working as a way to approach and talk about anger with younger kids.  The bilingual edition of What a Tantrum! / Vaya rabieta! flows very well.  I find sometimes that bilingual editions are a bit choppy and awkward, but I felt that both English and Spanish versions of the story seemed "natural".  I'm interested in finding other bilingual editions like this one, where the goal is to tell the story in both languages -not to try to teach vocabulary like most bilingual books I've read.