La velita de los cuentos
by Lucía González (2008)
2008 Pura Belpé Honor Medal recipient
The Storyteller's Candle by Lucía González is a beautifully illustrated picture book representing what it means to be an immigrant trying to find connections to a new land. The bilingual text offers the tale fluidly in Spanish and English, though even the English version intersperses Spanish words and flavor. The text covers historic events from the perspective of a child. As Hildamar and Santiago discover the magic of the public library Lulu Delacre's illustrations grow more vibrant in hue. The collages on each page make use of a New York Times paper from January 6, 1930 - the actual date of the first Three King's Day celebration at the New York Public Library.The detail this brings in and the added interest is a beautiful touch.
Since the text is bilingual this book would be great to use in classes with both English and Spanish speaking students. Students could work cooperatively in groups and be able to understand the text regardless of their English proficiency level. For higher-level Spanish-speaking English Language Learners (in ESL) the lower portion of the page with the Spanish text could be covered to encourage the students to work on reading in English. The Spanish text could be read after the English portion to see if the student gathered all important points or understood the dialogue. The opposite could be done for English speakers trying to learn Spanish - or to prove a point to a classroom about the difficulty of working on a classroom project when it is not in their native language!
The text could also be used in social studies lessons exploring holidays, Hispanic historic figures, or the 1930s.
No comments:
Post a Comment