The first book that I chose was, Maria Had A Little Llama by Angela Dominguez. This book was a twist on the classic nursery rhyme Mary Had a Little Lamb. It had every page of the rhyme in both Spanish and English. I think this is a good way to introduce another language to young children because it is a rhyme and story that the children are familiar with. Although the story was a little bit different than the original nursery rhyme, it has an adorable twist where the llama follows Maria to school. Maria Had A Little Llama received the Pura Belpre Honor for her Illustrations. She was born in Mexico City and grew up in Texas. Her website is http://www.angeladominguezstudio.com/. The Cazuela That The Farm Maiden Stirred written by Samantha R.
Vamos and illustrated by Rafael Lopez was the second story I chose of Pura Belpre award books. This book has a clever was of integrating Spanish words. The first page had one line and then every consecutive page had an additional part added. The interesting part was that the line from the previous page had the noun in Spanish. This really would be helpful in teaching some Spanish words along with being able to understand the story because, the kids would understand what the Spanish works were from already hearing them in Spanish. Samantha R. Vamos was born in Wisconsin and grew up on the east coast. She is currently in the Pacific Northwest. According to her website she came up with the idea for this book while she was cooking! Her website is http://www.samanthavamos.com/about.aspx. The illustrator, Rafael Lopez, has a lot of experience with illustrating and winning awards! His is influenced by his heritage growing up in Mexico City. He now spends time in San Diego and San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, where his studio is located. His website is http://rafaellopez.com/#/bio. The third book I read was My World, My Colors by Maya Christina Gonzalez. In this story, Maya, loves colors. She wants to find all the colors around her but the desert sand seems to cover everything. When she looks hard enough she finds these colors in her everyday life like her pink clothes, green cactus, and the orange marigold flowers! The author Maya Christina Gonzalez wrote this story about herself as a little girl. She now currently lives in San Francisco, California with her family. She has won multiple awards for her artwork and has created curriculums for schools. Her website is http://www.mayagonzalez.com/about-maya/.
The book which I chose to share called Peter’s Chair written by Ezra Jack Keats. In the story, there is a boy named Peter whose parents just have a new born baby. Peter notices many things have changed around his house. His parents paint his old cradle, high chair and crib in pink and give them to his baby sister. Peter knows he needs to do something to prevent giving away of his favorite chair. Therefore, Peter decides to run always with all his favorite things and his dog, Willie. While Peter is being outsides, he sits on his chair and realizes that he is too big to the chair. He goes back home and tells his father that he would like to paint the chair in pink and give it to his little sister.
The author Jane Yolen said, “Literature is a textually transmitted disease, normally contracted in childhood.” This disease she referenced I never seemed to contract. My experiences with literature, both reading, and writing, have been dull, to say the least. There was never anything that stuck out to me or had a changing impact on my perception of literature. Literature was a job that I had to show up to and pay attention to when I was told This was true until I began reading a biography about one of my favorite artists. It was a book about Selena, who's full name is Selena Quintanilla Perez, and was written by her husband, Chris Perez. As I was reading this book, I experienced the first time that a piece of literature can have an impact on
Selena, “Le Reina de Tejano”, was born on April 16, 1971, in Lake Jackson. She was the youngest of three children of Abraham Quintanilla Jr. and Marcela, his wife. At a young age, Abraham had a strong passion for music that he still has. During the 1950s and 1960s, him and his friends made a group called “Los Dinos” and played at nightclubs and restaurants. Even though his passion for music, he gave it up when he got married and earned a job at Dow Chemical as a shipping clerk.
...will enjoy this book and use it to introduce areas such as history, poetry, geography, cooking, counting for the younger audience and language. Language and math components of the story can be used for reinforcement at www.winslowpress.com.
In Federico García Lorca’s La Casa de Bernarda Alba, a tyrant woman rules over her five daughters and household with absolute authority. She prevents her daughters from having suitors and gives them little to no freedom, especially with regard to their sexualities and desires. They must conform to the traditional social expectations for women through sewing, cleaning, as well as staying pure and chaste. While, as John Corbin states in The Modern Language Review, “It was entirely proper for a respectable woman in [Bernarda’s] position to manage her household strictly and insist that the servants keep it clean, to defend its reputation, ensure the sexual purity of her daughters, and promote advantageous marriages for them,” Bernarda inordinately
Celia, a Slave was a factual interpretation of one isolated incident that depicted common slave fear during the antebellum period of the United States. Melton A. McLaurin, the author, used this account of a young slave woman's struggle through the undeserved hardships of rape and injustice to explain to today's naive society a better depiction of what slavery could have been like. The story of Celia illustrates the root of racial problems Americans still face in their society. Although not nearly as extreme, they continue to live in a white-male dominated culture that looks down upon African-Americans, especially females. McLaurin looks at the views of the time, and speculates the probabilities of this pre - Civil War era, the values of which still pierce daily life in the United States.
A Guatemalan native, a male graduate student that I work with in my research group at the University told this story. He came from the countryside, living in a small village back home. According to him, the story of La Llorona, involving a weeping woman, arose sometime in the 1700s and became well known both at school and home. Some claimed to have actually seen the weeping woman. Some disregard it as unscientific and implausible. No one is sure of the exact origin of this urban legend. This story was told to me and another graduate student in our research group while sitting in lab waiting for the experiment results. The story began as we started sharing our own background and the culture of our own countries when the storyteller decided to make a little shift and started to tell a story told to him by his older cousin--the story of La Llorona:
Some students like the book because they can relate to the culture behind the book which is Latino. In the article by Seema Mehta it states “Teachers said the book helped connect with their Latino students, who make up two thirds of the district.¨ In Los Angeles the Latino population is high so when some students can connect to a book they´ll be more interested in reading it. The article also states ¨They felt empowered by this book¨. The students felt empowered by the book they could understand what the kids or people in the book were saying and they could relate to it.
The book I chose to read is called, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder by: Richard Louv. I chose this book for a few different reasons. One reason I chose this book was because I’ m highly interested in the whole concept of the book and feel very passionate about its reasoning. I also thought it would be a great read to guide me towards a topic for my main project at the end of the Lemelson program. On the plus side, I “read” this book through audible, which enabled me to listed to the book on my drive to and from work everyday. I commonly do this because of my forty-five minute commute from Truckee to Spanish Springs.
In both pieces of literature; "Barrio Boy," by Ernesto Galarza and "The Joy Luck Club," by Amy Tan; the authors portray families and their struggle with language barriers, even within their own families, adapting to the customs and routines of the North American society, and how the younger family members succeeded in school, work, and relationships.
In the Summer of 2014, my mom handed me a book called “Como Agua Para Chocolate” by Laura Esquivel. I read this book in high school my sophomore year In my English class “Like Water for Chocolate”. The good thing is that I knew what this book was about so in
Senick, Gerard J., and Hedblad, Alan. Children’s Literature Review: Excerpts from Reviews, and Commentary on Books for Children and Young People (Volumes 14, 34, 35). Detroit, Michigan: Gale Research, 1995..
Anderson, Hans. Wonderful Stories for Children. London: Chapman and Hall 186 Strand, 1846. 64-75. eBook.
Dr. Seuss 's Go, Dog. Go, was a book I remember reading a lot (probably because I loved dogs so much). When I was younger I used to go to my aunt 's house during the summer, and my grandmother would always be there. She enjoyed reading, so she made me read a book a week, whether it was from the library or from the books on the shelves at my aunt 's house. I did not enjoy going over there to read, especially since it was summer, but I did get rewarded after finishing a book with a game of Guess Who? with my grandmother.
De Vaca gave detailed accounts on how the Indians lived which I found interesting. The males lived in the estufas, while women lived in the house. For a proposal, the male would weave a blanket and place it before the female. Spanish Explorers In The New World was interesting because of the detail with the Indians as opposed to other stories which involve no action.The second piece of early American literature I read was The General History. The Jamestown colony as plagued from the beginning by unfortunate circumstances.