Materials from the Americas
Senora Amelia loves animals. In this lively and cheery story from Venezuela, you will see to what lengths she will go in order to grant her handsome hen Rosaura a birthday wish. The delicate colored pencil drawings lend warmth and charm to this tale. Their color and light precisely portray the sense of place–a small town in Venezuela.
In letters to her cousin, a young Jewish girl chronicles her family’s flight from Russia in 1919 and her own experiences when she must be left in Belgium for a while when the others emigrate to America.
Young Frederic Pipkin tries very hard to follow in his musical family’s footsteps, but every new instrument he plays sounds worse than the one before. Includes songs.
It is 1901 and Mable Riley dreams of adventure and of becoming a writer. When her older sister leaves home to become a schoolmistress in the small town of Stratford, Ontario, Mable is sent along too. Mable hopes her new world will be full of peril and romance. But life at the Goodhand Farm (where the sisters board), is as humdrum as the one she’s left behind.Then Mable encounters the mysterious Mrs. Rattle, a peculiar widow with a taste for upsetting the townspeople with her strange opinions. Mrs. Rattle is a real writer, and Mable eagerly accepts her invitation to a meeting of the Ladies Reading Society. But the ladies are not discussing books at all, and Mable may soon have more peril than she’d bargained for!Composed of the letters Mable sends home, the poems she writes for her classmates, and chapters from her own work-in-progress, Mable Riley is the funny, inspiring, (and reliable) record of a young girl finding her voice, and the courage to make it heard.
A rhyming tale about a toad who travels to the outdoor market, only to discover upon his return home that he has neglected to pick up the items on his grocery list. He does manage, however, to have a spectacularly wonderful time perusing the venue and mingling with fellow customers.
Accustomed to his impoverished life in Bogota, Colombia, Juan Guillermo resents his family and is delighted when a visit to his wealthy grandmother introduces him to the comforts of money, but he learns a savage truth that puts his family in danger.
Rosa is bored, but Grandmother is too busy making tortillas for the market to notice. But when a little fish leaps out of the water right into Rosa’s lap, well, there’s nothing boring about that. Especially when the little fish starts to become a great big one.
Finding a seriously hurt dolphin in the Amazon near her small Colombian village and suspecting her stepfather of having wounded it, Carmenza nurses it back to health and turns to the wise old Indian Omar to appease its spirit.
A surprising journey of self-discover. In early fall, the blackbirds creak like rusty wheels behind our apartment. “One day I will return like you,” my mother tells the birds. “But for now, you go. Que les vaya bien. Safe journey.” Ana doesn’t understand the pull of this faraway place until one night she puts her favorite thing, a stone spit from the volcanoes of Costa Rica, underneath her pillow. She imagines herself a blackbird flying to this country her mother longs to see again. This evocative picture book with its striking, bold art celebrates the importance of hope, dreams, and cultural roots, and will have special resonance for all thos who find themselves at the crossroads of two cultures.
This collection of six bilingual children’s stories takes a regional and historical emphases. “Sixteen” provides the background of September 16, Mexico’s day of independence from Spain. “The Little General” teaches children about Cinco de Mayo through a young boy who helps save his village from the French army. The remaining four stories are fables that impart important moral themes to young readers. In “Sweetie, the Lion that Thought He Was a Sheep,” children learn to respect different backgrounds and abilities. “A Parrot for Christmas” demonstrates the friendship children can share with animals and “Orlando, the Circus Bear” emphasizes the importance of compassion toward animals. “A Horse Called ‘Miracle’” teaches the value of helping others in need. Each story is followed with discussion questions to help children recall the story’s key details and suggestions for classroom activities designed to stimulate curiosity and expand knowledge of historical events.