Dia de los Ninos!

Book Fiesta!
Written by Pat Mora
Illustrated by Rafael Lopez
Published by HarperCollins

Copyright 2009
26 pages
Multi-Cultural

 

I chose this book because of the split language (bilingual) writing style that is used as a theme throughout the whole story. The title was also really cute, and so were the children on the front cover. I was looking for a multi-cultural book, and this one seemed like it would be the best option for my personal tastes. This book was very simple and easy to read. The entire book is basically about places where we can read together, which indirectly promotes unity among the two cultures. The author stretched the imaginations of the intended young readers by saying that we can read on the backs of elephants, we can read to lizards, and we can even read in submarines. This is great, especially for some of the youngest of readers that may not even know what Spanish is yet. The author and illustrator did a great job on teaming up and making the pictures go well with the content. For English speaking students to be able to relate the picture to something else while reading the Spanish version is very important.

            The illustrations in this book are outstanding. They are by far my favorite among the children’s books I have read. The paintings seem to be done in water color. Each color appears to have a texture due to the way they were painted. The images fill up every single page.  The end paper is glued to the boards inside the front and back, and even they are full of life and vibrant colors. They join with the flyleaf to create a wonderful imaginative beginning and ending for the book. The title page, frontis piece, and copyright page have their own images to communicate the nature of the story over a double page spread.

            This book would be an awesome book for every classroom. The book celebrates children and reading. A teacher could create a “Book Fiesta” day for the children. The children could each bring their favorite book. They could share their book with the class, and each present a book talk. The teacher could make the whole day a celebration for the children, and bring food and music to go along with the party. This would be a great way to encourage reading. Since this book is written in English and Spanish, the teacher could allow two students to read this book aloud to the class. One student could read in English and the other in Spanish. This would be a great time to teach a little about the Spanish language afterwards. This book promotes a sense of friendship and unity among the two children in the book. The teacher could talk about the two different cultures, and the students could create a Venn-diagram about their similarities and differences.