Alma Flor Ada

¡Pío Peep! Traditional Spanish Nursery Rhymes

Bilin­gual Anthol­ogy of Folk­lore for Young Children

RECOGNITIONS

Notable Book in the area of Lan­guage Arts by National Book Coun­cil
Best Ten Books for Babies, Begin­ning with Books, Cen­ter for Early Lit­er­acy
Best Book of the Year, Nick Jr. Mag­a­zine
Media Award, Parent’s Guide to Children’s Media
100 Titles for Read­ing and Shar­ing, New York Pub­lic Library
Books of the Year Award, Par­ent­ing Mag­a­zines
2 x 2 Read­ing List, Texas Library Asso­ci­a­tion
Starred Review, School Library Jour­nal
Starred Review, Críti­cas
Miami Her­ald Best Books of the Year

BOOK DESCRIPTION

El sol es de oro
la luna es de plata
y las estrel­li­tas
son de hoja de lata.

The sun’s a gold medal­lion
The moon’s a sil­ver ball.
The lit­tle stars are only tin;
I love them best of all.

Here is a ground­break­ing bilin­gual col­lec­tion of tra­di­tional rhymes that cel­e­brates child­hood and Span­ish and Latin Amer­i­can her­itage. From play­ing dress up to mak­ing tor­tillas, and from ris­ing at day­break to falling asleep, these joy­ful rhymes are sure to delight young readers.

Passed down from gen­er­a­tion to gen­er­a­tion, the twenty-nine rhymes included have been lov­ingly selected by dis­tin­guished authors Alma Flor Ada and F. Isabel Cam­poy. Eng­lish adap­ta­tions by Alice Scher­tle cap­ture the spirit of each rhyme and have a charm all their own. Accom­pa­nied by enchant­ing illus­tra­tions by Span­ish artist Viví Escrivá, this col­lec­tion is des­tined to become a beloved clas­sic for chil­dren already famil­iar with the rhymes as well as those encoun­ter­ing them for the first time.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

The trea­suries of the folk­lore, whether rhymes, rid­dles, songs or tongue twisters were pre­cious gifts in my child­hood. In grat­i­tude for the joy they gave me I have tried to share them in mul­ti­ple forms, within poetry antholo­gies, like Días y días de poesía, Gor­rión gor­rión, and in books, like Mama Goose, MooMuu, Merry Navi­dad and many oth­ers. I have writ­ten about my child­hood expe­ri­ences with these folk tra­di­tions in the book Pin Pin Sarabín. I hope you find as much joy shar­ing this book as I had dur­ing its compilation.

REVIEWS

School Library Journal

Pre-School–Grade 2: Fol­low­ing in the tra­di­tion of Mar­got Griego’s Tor­tilli­tas para Mama (Holt, 1995) and Jose-Luis Orozco’s Diez ded­i­tos (Dut­ton, 1997) comes this stel­lar col­lec­tion of nurs­ery rhymes. Selected from the rich oral tra­di­tion of Latin Amer­ica and the Amer­i­can South­west, most of the verses are known through­out the Spanish-speaking world. The rhymes cover every­thing from early morn­ing birds to ele­phants to angels, and the rea­son for their endur­ing pop­u­lar­ity is clear. Deeply rhyth­mic verses, com­pelling rhyme schemes, and words that “play trip­pingly on the tongue” char­ac­ter­ize every verse. Schertle’s excel­lent Eng­lish adap­ta­tions are not lit­eral trans­la­tions but poetic re-creations. They retain the rhythm, meter, and gen­eral mean­ing of the orig­i­nals, mak­ing the rhymes as mem­o­rable and mem­o­riz­able in Eng­lish as they are in Span­ish. Escriv ‘s water­color and colored-pencil illus­tra­tions use bril­liant hues and detail to recon­struct a young child’s world. Cer­tain to become a sta­ple for preschool and early ele­men­tary pro­grams, this offer­ing is also a won­der­ful, reas­sur­ing lap book. A must-purchase for libraries. © 2003 Reed Busi­ness Infor­ma­tion, Inc.

Book­list

PreSchool: As the pref­ace to this delight­ful book states, nurs­ery rhymes and songs are an impor­tant part of Span­ish oral folk­lore. The 29 rhymes here–some accom­pa­nied by fin­ger plays or games, and some sim­ply meant to be chanted on their own–in most cases came to the Amer­i­cas from Spain. They are pre­sented both in Span­ish and in Eng­lish, although “to pre­serve the charm of the orig­i­nal rhymes,” the Eng­lish ver­sions are not trans­la­tions but “poetic recre­ations.” Even adult read­ers with a rudi­men­tary knowl­edge of Span­ish will see some of the dif­fer­ences, but both ver­sions have a sweet, rhyth­mic sim­plic­ity that will get chil­dren singing, clap­ping, and per­haps mak­ing some for­ays into a new lan­guage. The water­color illus­tra­tions, fea­tured promi­nently on the page, are a mix of his­tor­i­cal and con­tem­po­rary, generic Latin Amer­i­can scenes, and pic­tures of ani­mals (not Escriva’s artis­tic strong suit). Par­ents, teach­ers, and librar­i­ans will find a mul­ti­tude of uses. –Ilene Cooper.

Grandma’s Book Letter

GRANDMA RECOMMENDS… FOR BABIES AND TODDLERS:
¡Pío Peep! Tra­di­tional Span­ish Nurs­ery Rhymes, selected by Alma Flor Ada and F. Isabel Campoy.

The authors tell us that Span­ish oral folk­lore is rich in nurs­ery rhymes and songs, some are frag­ments of ancient medieval bal­lads while oth­ers are old har­vest songs. Ada and Cam­poy have gath­ered some of the best known and most loved rhymes in this lively bilin­gual edition.

…

Give the gift of another cul­ture to wee ones this sea­son with a bilin­gual bed­time read­ing of “Pio Peep: Tra­di­tional Span­ish Nurs­ery Rhymes.” Vivi Escriva catches the eye with bright water­col­ors while Alice Scher­tle pre­serves the sing-song sound as the 29 rhymes move from Span­ish to Eng­lish. The result of one trans­la­tion is, “Rice Pud­ding / rice pud­ding / it’s mar­ried I’ll be / I’ll find in the city / the right girl for me.” — Linda Piwowarczyk

Great Kids Books

I really enjoy shar­ing poetry and sto­ries from other cul­tures with young chil­dren. Here is a won­der­ful col­lec­tion of tra­di­tional Span­ish nurs­ery rhymes and songs, in both Span­ish and Eng­lish. It’s per­fect for tod­dlers and young chil­dren, but would also be great to explore with slightly older chil­dren who are lean­ing Span­ish… More »

READERS’ RESPONSES

If you have enjoyed read­ing or shar­ing this book, I would very much like to hear from you. Please click here to send your comments.