Tengo gusto de las fresas maduras y rojas

El Ratoncito, La Fresa Roja y Madura y El Gran Oso Hambriento 

(The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear)

Publicado por Scholastic

(Published by Scholastic)

Por Don y Audrey Wood

(Written by Don & Audrey Wood)

Illustrado por Don Wood

(Illustrated by Don Wood)

Traducuido por Teresa Mlawer

(Translated by Teresa Mlawer)

Who wouldn’t love an inquisitive little mouse on a tiny little ladder?  Especially when your first reactions to the said mouse are, “Wow he’s small compared to that giant strawberry,” and “is he making eye contact with me?”  As you might be able to tell from the cover image below, the red ripe strawberry (or la fresa roja y madura) is actually HUGE or GRANDE.  Also, the little mouse is making eye contact with you.  This book is a wonderful learning tool for beginning readers of both English and Spanish because it pulls the reader into the story and engages him or her in a one-way dialogue with el ratoncito.  

Because this text is readily available in both English and Spanish, it is a good tool to help English language learners who are familiar with Spanish experience conversational English in written form (if they’re reading the English version of the text) and students who are fluent in English could have an opportunity to learn a little Spanish.   The dialogue is simple and Teresa Mlawer did a beautiful job of consolidating the translations into very basic Spanish.  It is obvious that special care was taken to present both versions of the written text in the same format—for example, Mlawer uses the slang term “el ratoncito” instead of the more formal “el raton pequeno” because the former is much easier for a young reader to process.   If you have ever had a conversation with your dog, cat, fish, etc., you know that all animals have the ability to be great listeners and that, sometimes, great conversationalists.   This text has one-to-one  dialogue and illustration, making it even easier for beginning readers to get engaged. In fact, after reading this book three or four times (in two languages), I nearly have it memorized.

 This book would be a great teaching tool in a kindergarten or first grade classroom to stimulate class discussion, inferences, and reflections, and there are a number of activity based resources available on the internet.  Some of the best that I found focus on group and individual prediction formation (http://www.teachervision.fen.com/skill-builder/lesson-plan/48712.html) and, shockingly, fractions (http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/lessonplan.jsp?id=1019).  I found the Scholastic lesson on basic fractions (wholes, halves, maybe fourths) to be especially useful because many teachers have trouble incorporating them in interdisciplinary lessons.   This story presents the perfect opportunity to discuss some practical uses of fractions and expose younger students to the idea of dividing a whole (you’ll see why!)