Category: Books for Exploring World Languages

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#kidlit Conoce A Las Sirenas Hola, Soy Sofía for #ReadYourWorld

For Multicultural Children’s Book Day 2022 (see below post for details) we are featuring Conoce a las sirenas: Hola, soy Sofía (Spanish Edition) by Lois Petren.

English edition


Sofía is a Latina mermaid, one of the Five Enchanted Mermaids. She adores the color red, has a dolphin as a best friend, and loves to tell the truth!

Once we are introduced to Sofía, she acts as the narrator for the rest of the book, which is about helping children learn the importance of honesty.

Over the following pages, different situations unfold where children (the delightful illustrations depict human children, not mermaids) are tempted to lie. Sofía the mermaid points out two outcomes, happy and unhappy — or in Spanish, felices e infelices – that are possible results of each of the situations. The young readers learn that no matter what the motivation, lying is not the best choice.

Conoce a las sirenas: Hola, soy Sofía is ideal for educators who want to start a discussion about the importance of telling the truth.

Note:  There are two editions of this book, one written entirely in English and the other in Spanish. As part of the Multicultural Children’s Book Day 2022 festivities,  author Lois Petren gifted us an electronic copy of the Spanish edition of the book.

Related Activity:

Sofía loves the color red. Look in the illustrations and/or gather objects or toys that are red (rojo). Discuss the Spanish words for them.

Examples:

On the book cover Sofía has a rosa roja (red rose) in her hair and a red fan (abanico rojo) in her hand.

Pájaro rojo
Corazón rojo

Extension:  Explore objects of other colors and pair them with the Spanish names.

Spanish edition

Reading age ‏ : ‎ Baby – 12 years
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Lois Petren (October 10, 2020)
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 195269406X
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1952694066

Disclosure:  I am an Amazon affiliate. If you go to Amazon by clicking the linked title or book cover and make a purchase, I will receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. Proceeds will be used to help defray the costs of developing and maintaining this website.

Multicultural Children’s Book Day 2022 (1/28/22) is in its 9th year! This non-profit children’s literacy initiative was founded by Valarie Budayr and Mia Wenjen; two diverse book-loving moms who saw a need to shine the spotlight on all of the multicultural books and authors on the market while also working to get those books into the hands of young readers and educators.

MCBD’s mission is to raise awareness of the ongoing need to include kids’ books that celebrate diversity in homes and school bookshelves. Read about our Mission & History HERE.

MCBD 2022 is honored to be Supported by these Medallion Sponsors!

SUPER PLATINUM: Make A Way Media

PLATINUM: Language Lizard

GOLD: Barefoot Books, KidLitTV, Candlewick, Capstone, Abrams Books

SILVER: Pack-n-Go Girls, Charlotte Riggle, Kimberly Gordon Biddle

BRONZE: Carole P. Roman, Patrice McLaurin, Dyesha and Triesha McCants/McCants Squared, Redfin.com, Redfin Canada, Redfin Mortgage, Redfin/Title Forward, Create & Educate, Star Bright Books, Vivian Kirkfield, Dr. Eleanor Wint, Kind World Publishing, Snowflake Stories, Lisa Wee, SONGJU MA, Melissa Stoller, J.C. Kato and J.C.², Crystel Patterson, Audrey Press, Pragmaticmom, TimTimTom, Wisdom Tales

MCBD 2022 is honored to be Supported by these Author Sponsors!

Charlene Mosley (official MCBD2022 Poster Creator)
Illustrator Isabelle Roxas (Class Kit Poster Creator)

Alva Sachs, Brianna Carter, Ebony Zay Zay, Rita Bhandari, Gwen Jackson, Lois Petren/The 5 Enchanted Mermaids, Valerie Williams-Sanchez and Valorena Publishing, Josh Funk, Afsaneh Moradian, Eugenia Chu, Maritza Martínez Mejía, Diana Huang, Kathleen Burkinshaw, CultureGroove, Sandra Elaine Scott, Dorena Williamson, Veronica Appleton, Alejandra Domenzain, Lauren Muskovitz and Sandfish Publishing, Tonya Duncan Ellis, Kimberly Lee, Susan Schaefer Bernardo & Illustrator Courtenay Fletcher, Nancy Tupper Ling, Winsome Hudson-Bingham, Amanda Hsiung-Blodgett, Sivan Hong, Michael Genhart, Debbie Dadey, Elizabeth Cureton, Stephanie Wildman, Maryann Jacob, Sherri Maret, Rochelle Melander, Dia Mixon, Kiyanda and Benjamin Young, Shereen Rahming, Linda Thornburg and Katherine Archer,  Rebecca Flansburg and BA Norrgard , Maxine Schur Natalie McDonald-Perkins

MCBD 2022 is Honored to be Supported by our CoHosts and Global CoHosts!

MCBD 2022 is Honored to be Supported by these Media Partners!

Check out MCBD’s Multicultural Books for Kids Pinterest Board!

FREE RESOURCES from Multicultural Children’s Book Day:

Diversity Book Lists & Activities for Teachers and Parents

FREE Homeschool Diverse Kidlit Booklist & Activity Kit

FREE Teacher Classroom Activism and Activists Kit

FREE Teacher Classroom Empathy Kit

FREE Teacher Classroom Kindness Kit

FREE Teacher Classroom Physical and Developmental Challenges Kit

FREE Teacher Classroom Poverty Kit

FREE Teacher Classroom Raising Awareness on Systemic Racism in America Classroom Kit

Gallery of Our Free Posters

FREE Diversity Book for Classrooms Program

Join us on Friday, Jan 29, 2021, at 9 pm EST for the 8th annual Multicultural Children’s Book Day Twitter Party! Be sure and follow MCBD and Make A Way Media on Twitter!

This epically fun and fast-paced hour includes multicultural book discussions, addressing timely issues, diverse book recommendations, & reading ideas.

We will be giving away an 8-Book Bundle every 5 minutes plus Bonus Prizes as well! *** US and Global participants welcome. **

Follow the hashtag #ReadYourWorld to join the conversation, connect with like-minded parts, authors, publishers, educators, organizations, and librarians. See you all very soon on Twitter!

Hashtag: Don’t forget to connect with us on social media and be sure and look for/use our official hashtag #ReadYourWorld.

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Alphamaniacs Rule the Word

Today we have a tribute to word players and geniuses, Alphamaniacs: Builders of 26 Wonders of the Word by Paul Fleischman and illustrated by Melissa Sweet.

Writers and poets often play with words in creative ways, but Paul Fleischman has gathered a collection of examples of people who have pushed the language envelope into other realms.

Examples:

1. Creative Translations from Sight to Sound

Young scholars have spent long hours translating Latin text into English, so imagine their delight to discover some Latin words sound enough like English words to write prose that means one thing in Latin and a totally different thing in English when read aloud. This is called Dog Latin (link to Wikipedia page).

2. Concrete Poetry Makes Images

Mary Ellen Solt and other poets have used letters  and words to make visual art. Search for examples of Mary Ellen Solt’s concrete poetry, like a poem about forsythia shaped like a forsythia bush or a zinna.

Intrigued at the possibilities? The collection includes:

  • The developer of stylometry or the use of computers to analyze writing style to establish authorship for anonymous works
  • A man who wrote an entire novel without using a single letter e
  • An obsessive designer of fonts
  • The man who created a new language called Esperanto

Plus many more.

As an added benefit , the illustrations are by the innovative Melissa Sweet. The collage mixture of art and word is its own contribution.

Fleischman has assembled an astonishing set of examples. The books is easily browsable and introduces fascinating subject matter. The only shortcoming is that because of the sheer number of different people he covers, he can’t delve deeply into any one topic. Each one receives only a light, breezy mention. Time and time again I wished the descriptions gave more details. Let’s face it, any one of these could be a topic for an extended essay or even a book on its own. It does help he provides references for “Further Entertainment” in the back matter. I wish a glossary had been included as well.

Overall, Alphamaniacs is the perfect choice for mature middle graders to young adults who have a fascination with words and languages. Who knows what it might inspire from future word players.

Related activities:

1. Take some poetic license.

My family has been creating poems and riddles based on car license plates for years, but it turns out we weren’t the first. Daniel Nussbaum has translated well-known stories using records of vanity plates in his book PL8SPK.

 

If you spend way too much time in the car, you probably see vanity license plates every day. Here’s a challenge: Use license plates to inspire haiku-like poems. You can add words if you choose.

For example, these actual vanity plates:

  • LEOPARD
  • FLAWLESS
  • SILENCE

can be rearranged to become the poem

Flawless leopard
Stalks its prey
Silence

In a similar theme, the license plates

  • X3X
  • ANCHOVY
  • FORTUNA

with a little “poetic license” become:

Three anchovies
Four tuna
X anchovies
X tuna

Think about it.

One day I saw these two in the same parking lot:

  • 1Run100
  • GOOD4EWE

I run 100 K
Good for you

That is a a nicer pair than:

Be a duck…
Kabob

UBETCYA

 

To accompany:  Alphamaniacs: Builders of 26 Wonders of the Word
Age Range: 12 – 16 years
Publisher: Candlewick Studio (April 14, 2020)
ISBN-10: 076369066X
ISBN-13: 978-0763690663

Disclosure: The book was provided by my good friend Cassie. Also, I am an affiliate with Amazon so I can provide you with cover images and links to more information about books and products. As you probably are aware, if you click through the highlighted title link and purchase a product, I will receive a very small commission, at no extra cost to you. Any proceeds help defray the costs of hosting and maintaining this website.

Looking for more children’s nonfiction books? Try the Nonfiction Monday blog.

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#Kidlit Explore New York Day & Night

Do you live in New York City? Planning a trip there? Then you will likely be interested in a newly-released picture book for the pre-K to kindergartner  set:  New York Day & Night by Aurelie Pollet and Vincent Bergier.

In the endpapers we meet Sandy the cat who helps us explore the dark, starting with a rocket-ship shape that stands out light against a dark blue and black night sky. Lifting the page, Frankie the squirrel welcomes us to New York in a daytime scene which reveals the rocket is actually the iconic Empire State Building. Note:  many of the buildings or locations are identified in the text, but some, like this one, are not.

Overall, the book reminds me a bit of Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak, except that the scary night parts with monsters or villains are brief, ending with the turn of a page. Readers may feel alternating tension then relief in each set of spreads as they learn that sometimes things aren’t as they seem.

Ironically, both author Aurelie Pollet and illustrator Vincent Bergierare from Paris and this celebration of New York was originally published in France.

New York Day & Night will delight young readers familiar with the city and may inspire others to want to visit. Discover a copy today!

Age Range: 3 – 6 years
Publisher: Prestel Junior (March 19, 2019)
ISBN-10: 3791373781
ISBN-13: 978-3791373782

Want to read more books set in New York City?  Check our list at the Reading through the States website.

The book was provided courtesy of Media Masters Publicity.