Adelita

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Finding books to fit a unit can be very difficult, especially when you want to keep students interested but also informed. I have found an excellent book to use in the 3rd grade classroom during our culture unit. Adelita is not just a great Mexican culture book but also something that the children can relate to. It has colorful illustrations and intriguing text. Almost every child knows the story of Cinderella, but the book Adelita gives the old tale a new twist by telling it in a Hispanic setting. The author and illustrator, Tomie DePaola, did a wonderful job using Mexican folk art in the book. Each picture depicts exactly what is going on in the text while keeping it subtle and interesting. The use of color is another key point in the book, not just that DePaola uses various colors on each page but that they match the story and emotions. Towards the beginning of the book Adela, the mother of Cenicienta (Cinderella), passes away and the illustration that go along are blacks, browns, and deep purples, even the background around the text is a deep tone. The illustrations …show more content…

First, there is plenty of text on each page for a 3rd grader, but not so much that it overwhelms them. The story follows the original tale of Cinderella almost perfectly with just a few tweaks. The reason I feel this book would fit nicely in our culture unit is because in the text there are snippets of Spanish language. Starting with the first line, “Hace mucho tiempo” a long time ago, I knew that Adelita was an ideal culture book. There are many more examples of Spanish language throughout the book followed by the English translation. It even goes far enough as to just use Spanish phrases, after first introducing them, with no translation such as Cenicienta for Cinderella and fiesta for party. The back page of the book also has all the phrases that we used in the book, what they mean, and how to say

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