Alma Flor Ada

A Surprise for Mother Rabbit
La sorpresa de Mamá Coneja

BOOK DESCRIPTION

When the bun­nies decide to help their mother gather eggs for Easter, they dis­cover the rich­ness of diver­sity. Each of the eight bun­nies bring an egg, a gift of a dif­fer­ent bird.

Bird lovers will appre­ci­ate the oppor­tu­nity to famil­iar­ize their stu­dents with many dif­fer­ent kinds of birds and their eggs, and every­one will wel­come this cel­e­bra­tion of diver­sity and multiculturalism.

One of the beloved titles of the series Sto­ries the Year ‘Round, or in Span­ish, Cuen­tos para todo el año. The com­plete sto­ries of the series are:

SPRING
A Rose with Wings
A Sur­prise for Mother Rab­bit
The Empty Piñata

PRIMAVERA
Rosa alada
La sor­presa de Mamá Coneja
La piñata vacía

SUMMER
How the Rain­bow Came to Be
After the Storm
In the Cow’s Backyard

VERANO
Cómo nació el arco iris
Después de la tor­menta
La hamaca de la vaca

FALL
The Kite
What Are Ghosts Afraid Of?
“Turkey for Thanks­giv­ing?” “No, Thanks!”

OTOÑO
El papalote
El susto de los fan­tas­mas
–¿Pavo para la Cena de Gra­cias? –No, gracias.

WINTER
The Golden Cage
I Don’t Want to Melt
It Wasn’t Me

INVIERNO
La jaula dorada
¡No quiero der­re­tirme!
No fui yo

CDS AND CASSETTES DESCRIPTION

Facil­i­tat­ing that chil­dren lis­ten to the sto­ries as recorded by the author has a spe­cial value. They can hear in the author’s voice just exactly how exactly the author wished to con­vey the sto­ries feel­ings and emo­tions, empha­sis and sus­pense. I par­tic­u­larly like to read aloud and to record my read­ings so, for me, it was par­tic­u­larly joy­ful to record these twelve sto­ries in Eng­lish and Spanish.

The sto­ries can be found in indi­vid­ual cas­settes in Eng­lish and Span­ish, one for each book of the series, or in CDs in Eng­lish and Span­ish ver­sions. Each of the CDs con­tains the twelve sto­ries of the series.

A Spe­cial Bonus

Because these sto­ries have been so beloved by chil­dren, I con­ceived the idea of given them an extra dimen­sion. I have rewrit­ten the 12 sto­ries in Span­ish in verse for­mat. And Suni Paz, with her incom­pa­ra­ble cre­ativ­ity, has put them to music. So the Span­ish cas­settes and CD con­tain not only the story as pub­lished in the book told by me, but also the story retold in verse form and sang by Suni.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

The twelve books of this series are some of my best well known books among bilin­gual teach­ers and their stu­dents. They are also very dear to my heart since the inspi­ra­tion for most of them comes from my own children’s childhood.

The major source of inspi­ra­tion for this book comes from the fact that my chil­dren were con­stantly look­ing for ways to help me, like the bun­nies in this story. While we lived in Detroit, the chil­dren and I spent many won­der­ful Sat­ur­days at the Children’s Museum. One of the activ­i­ties we learned there was to color Easter eggs the Ukran­ian style. And col­or­ing eggs was a fun pastime.

Finally, my son Miguel was a pas­sion­ate bird watcher. So I delighted in get­ting him books about birds and then lis­ten­ing to all his expla­na­tions about the birds habi­tats, their eggs, their indi­vid­ual char­ac­ter­is­tics and peculiarities.

So these things com­bined to cre­ate this book. I always tell chil­dren, when shar­ing this story, that even though my chil­dren were four – as they appear in I Don’t Want to Melt and in The Kite – I made them here eight bun­nies because being bilin­gual they could be twice as helpful!

READERS’ RESPONSES

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