Stella Diaz Never Gives Up and Dear Primo: A Letter to My Cousin
- harrisonse
- Sep 1, 2020
- 7 min read
Text Set and Authenticity:
This week I read Stella Diaz Never Gives Up by Angela Dominguez and Dear Primo: A Letter to My Cousin by Duncan Tonatiuh. Each of these books are written primarily in English, but include several Spanish words, making them excellent books to share with young readers to introduce them to a culture and a language they may not be familiar with. Incorporating these texts into your classroom library would also be beneficial for English Language Learners in your class to allow them to see words they may be more familiar with and to make them feel more comfortable sharing their first language within the classroom. These two texts can go together to discuss a marginalized community, similar to We Are Water Protectors from last week. (Visit my blog post for this text here.) Not only this, but Stella Diaz Never Gives Up and We Are Water Protectors also discuss the important issue of environmental conservation, even providing students with a way to agree to work towards making a difference by providing the reader with a pledge. Each of these books did an excellent job at providing the reader within information on both Mexican American and Mexican Culture. Throughout my following reflections I go more in depth on this concept.
Stella Diaz Never Gives Up:
Summary:
In this book a young girl goes on not one, but two exciting, life changing adventures that is shared with the reader throughout the course of the novel. A few of the first things we learn about the main character, Stella, is that she is searching for an adventure and she loves learning about marine life. Throughout the book she shares many facts she has learned about marine life with us, leading me to want to learn more on the topic and I think it would have the same effect on other readers. One fact that Stella shared was that sharks and dolphins are lighter on the bottom and darker on the top so they can camouflage themselves in the water (p.169) There was even an explanation to why the camouflage works in the following paragraph so the reader could understand. Stella’s first big adventure is a trip to Mexico to visit family and to see the Pacific Ocean for the first time. One thing that Stella struggled with while visiting Mexico was not knowing Spanish fluently. She could understand Spanish well but became uncomfortable when others spoke to her in Spanish because she was unsure of how to respond. This is not an issue many young readers may be familiar with because it is an uncommon narrative. I hope that some readers can see this and feel more comfortable knowing it is normal to not be fluent in every language, even if it is one that your family speaks. Since she is so passionate about marine life it was an incredible experience for her to be able to visit the ocean and see it firsthand. This experience increased her motivation to learn about marine life and do what she could to save the animals within the ocean in anyway she could. Practically right away after she returned from Mexico she was able to begin her next adventure, the Shedd Aquarium summer camp where she will be able to expand on her knowledge about marine life and fulfill her passion of not only learning about marine life, but also what she can do to save them. As she attends this camp she makes many new friends, all of which are also passionate about saving the oceans. They work together to create a club called the Sea Musketeers, a play on words from the commonly known Three Musketeers, where they hold a fundraiser to raise money to donate to an organization that focuses on saving the oceans. Without each of the friends’ help, they would not have been able to make such a big difference, showing the power of coming together as one. This idea of unity reminded me of my reading from last week, We Are Water Protectors, and I think this is another excellent book to inspire children to work together to make a difference. Similar to We Are Water Protectors, this book also includes a pledge that the reader could sign to reduce the amount of waste they put into the environment! I think this book would be appropriate for upper elementary and middle grades since it is a longer chapter book but since it contains shorter chapters, still has an easy to follow story line.
My Thoughts:
As I read through this novel, there were several different characteristics that stood out to me. One thing was the friendships that were discussed throughout the story. At the beginning of the book, Stella already had two close friends, Stanley and Jenny, but she was able to make several new friends while at her summer camp. All these friends came together in the end as members of the new club, the Sea Musketeers, even though they all had a wide range of interests. The friends in this story were so supportive of each other’s ideas and collaborated in order to expand on their concepts. This will provide young readers with mature behaviors to model within their own friend groups. It will also show them that you can be friends with people who are passionate about different things, or you can make friends by sharing a common interest.
Another thing that stood out to me was that the author incorporated a wide variety of Spanish words, some common words that readers would be familiar with, some cognates, and some words that could be translated by the reader using context clues. I loved how the author included so many Spanish words! I think this would make Spanish speaking students feel more comfortable in class because they will be reading a text that has words they are familiar with, which is not common in a lot of children’s literature. One idea that I think could be utilized with this text is having students who are fluent in Spanish aid you in pronouncing some of the words from the book. This will give them a sense of importance and responsibility in the classroom, allowing them to be proud by sharing something only they are an expert on with the class. Below I have listed some cognates, not all of which are perfect, and commonly used Spanish words with their English translation that I observed in the text. You could use these words, in addition to the many others used within the book, to begin teaching your students some Spanish vocabulary. Although some schools offer Spanish classes, not all do especially at the elementary level, so this could be an opportunity for you to teach your students a wide range of words.
For more information on the author please visit the link below:
Dear Primo: A Letter to My Cousin:
Summary:
This book is written as a series of letters that two cousins are writing back and forth to one another. One cousin, named Carlitos, lives in Mexico and the other, named Charlie, lives in America. As Carlitos writes he includes several different Spanish words in each letter that directly correlates to the particular experiences he is writing about. I appreciated that throughout the story the two cousins share what their life looks like, allowing the reader to see how two people can live so differently, even if they are related. The setting plays an important role throughout this story because the reader is able to see how living in a town in Mexico differs greatly from living in a city in America. The cousins share stories of their everyday lives, including where they live, how they get to school, what they enjoy doing for fun, what they like to eat, and how they celebrate certain events and holidays. In the end both cousins state that they should each visit each other so they can share their very different lives with their beloved primo. This picture book would work well with all elementary grades because it has eye catching illustrations that young readers will enjoy and I think introducing a concept they may be unfamiliar with would also be very interesting for younger readers. Something interesting about this book is that it won the Pura Belpre Award in 2011 because of it's celebratory depiction of the Latino culture.
My Thoughts:
One thing I appreciated in this book was that throughout Carlitos’ writing the Spanish words he incorporates are used in a sentence and there is also a corresponding picture on the same page that is labeled with the Spanish word. For example, when he talked about how his family grew maíz, or corn, there was also a picture of corn on the page labeled “maíz.” This will make it easier for the reader to understand what each of the Spanish words used throughout the book mean in English. This strategy is a clever way to introduce students to new words in a language they are unfamiliar with and I hope to find other children’s books that also incorporate this strategy.
An activity that I think could go along well with this book is having students either interview a relative that lives in another place or to research another location and analyze how people in other places live differently than them. This will allow students to realize that what they see in their everyday lives differs from people that live in other places around the world. This book introduces the culture of Carlitos very well by showing the reader things that someone who lives in Mexico may do in their everyday life, so they can immediately compare and contrast it to their own. They may notice that Carlitos lives on a farm like them or that he rides his bike to school where they take the bus. These similarities and differences can be easily noted by the reader because of the text and the corresponding pictures.
For more information on the author visit the link below:
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