Ginger Foglesong Guy's ¡Perros! ¡Perros! Dogs! Dogs! (2006) is a Spanish-English picture book. As part of my efforts to learn some rudimentary classroom Spanish, I decided to locate and read children's picture books. They have to be pretty easy to qualify! I found two yesterday at a local library that nicely combine a simply told story with text in both Spanish and English. Trying to read a simple book in a largely unfamiliar language is a good reminder of how kids may feel when confronted with too much text or too many unfamiliar words on a page.
George Ancona's mi escuela: my school (2004) is the second Spanish-English picture book I chose. It is a "day in the life" kind of story about a real-life student, Christopher. The author is the grandfather of Christopher's third grade teacher. Like ¡Perros! ¡Perros! the text is written in both Spanish and English.
William Steig's Abel's Island (1976) is a Newberry Honor Book. Abel, a young, married and somewhat spoiled mouse, finds himself marooned alone on an island after he is separated from his party during a sudden storm. In order to survive, he must call upon resources he never knew he possessed, and, in the process, he finds a new passion in life - sculpting! True to Steig's usual style, Abel's Island is replete with high level vocabulary. According the the Scholastic Book Wizard, the reading level is 5.5, but high level vocabulary includes words such as: burgeoning, bestirred, viands, void and absolved. I can imagine using Abel's Island as a class read-aloud.
Andrew Clements' Frindle (1996) could probably be called a modern classic. On the surface it is simply the story of a small act of rebellion (renaming a pen as a "frindle"), but the short novel raises some deeper issues. How do languages change? Are some rules meant to be broken? Why do we choose to fight some battles when the issues seem minor? Frindle would be a great springboard for class discussions.
Andrew Clements" Things Not Seen (2002) is the first book in a series, which also includes Things Hoped For and Things That Are. In this novel we are introduced to Bobby, an average teen until the day he wakes up and discovers that he has become invisible. What may sound like a "cheesy" plot, however, provides impetus for dealing with issues of how we are perceived by others and how we see ourselves. Bobby finds solace in his friendship with Alicia, whose blindness permits her to ignore the issue of Bobby's invisibility.
Rick Riordan's The Lightning Thief (2005) made my to-read list because I know the series is popular with kids. Indeed I found it compulsively readable. It did remind me of the Harry Potter series in some respects, but I felt that the characters were more richly developed in the Rowlings books, and the "back stories" more elaborate. Nonetheless, Riordan tells a good tale, and manages to squeeze in quite a bit of mythology along the way. When I have time, I will probably read the other books in the series.
I sent this on to Mother. She is always interested in children's books. Love, dad
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