Alma Flor Ada

Alma Flor Ada and You, Volume II

BOOK DESCRIPTION

Fol­low­ing up on the first vol­ume fea­tur­ing pro­lific author Alma Flor Ada, this sec­ond vol­ume offers fur­ther insight into her life and work. Here the author dis­cusses her work as a poet, drama­tist, writer of mem­oirs, re teller of folk­tales and leg­ends for chil­dren, and orig­i­nal sto­ries. She dis­cusses her col­lab­o­ra­tive work and the process involved in work­ing with Isabel Cam­poy with whom she has co-authored numer­ous books, with dif­fer­ent illus­tra­tors, in par­tic­u­lar Leslie Tryon, with song­writer Suni Paz, and her daugh­ter Rosalma Zubizarreta, who has trans­lated many of Alma Flor’s books.

The book is enhanced by chap­ters con­tributed by Isabel Cam­poy, Leslie Tryon, Suni Paz and Rosalma Zubizarreta.

Alma Flor’s s work as a trans­la­tor and pro­moter of Span­ish and Eng­lish books for all chil­dren –well known and val­ued in bilin­gual edu­ca­tion– is also detailed. Finally, draw­ing on the author’s years of expe­ri­ence as Pro­fes­sor of Edu­ca­tion and her many author’s visit to schools, the book fur­nishes use­ful ideas and activ­i­ties for using her books in the class­room to spark the writer within every young reader.

The book con­cludes with an excel­lent chap­ter by Janet Hill and Anthony L. Manna who offer an insight­ful analy­sis of the sig­nif­i­cance of Alma Flor’s work in the fields of children’s lit­er­a­ture and education

“THE AUTHOR AND YOU” SERIES DESCRIPTION

Play­ing on the phrase, “the author and you”–a com­mon read­ing com­pre­hen­sion strat­egy that teaches the learner how to look at the words of an author and make infer­ences about what is being said–this series helps the teacher and teacher-librarian under­stand the under­ly­ing pur­poses of an author as they pre­pare learn­ing activ­i­ties for their stu­dents. The series focuses pri­mar­ily on books for the ele­men­tary age child (K-6), fea­tur­ing insights into the author’s back­ground, pur­poses and goals in writ­ing his books. By fur­nish­ing an overview of the author’s works, the books in the series give teach­ers the big pic­ture. Each book fea­tures per­sonal infor­ma­tion about the author, includ­ing insight into why he writes the type of books he does. In addi­tion, les­son plans and/or activ­i­ties are offered for each of the author’s books fea­tured. Lessons stress the par­tic­u­lar inter­ests of the author so the “author and you (the teacher)” can build a col­lab­o­ra­tive instruc­tional rela­tion­ship using the mate­r­ial pro­vided. Each book is writ­ten by the fea­tured author or in close col­lab­o­ra­tion with her.

Two vol­umes in the series fea­ture the life and work of pro­lific author, Alma Flor Ada, dis­cussing her life and work as a bilin­gual children’s author. Because Alma Flor has com­piled such a large vol­ume of work, the series will fea­ture two vol­umes about her. The first vol­ume focuses on her life and her pic­ture books for chil­dren. Dis­cus­sion of Alma Flor’s child­hood in Cuba, her school­ing in Europe, and her immi­gra­tion to Amer­ica is inter­wo­ven with dis­cus­sions of her children’s pic­ture books. The reader thus learns the gen­e­sis for the ideas and the sto­ries. This book pro­vides a fas­ci­nat­ing win­dow into the life and work of the beloved children’s author and her desire to help chil­dren develop the writer within.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Intro­duc­tion: Words of Hope. Liv­ing to Write, Writ­ing to Love

PART I: Becom­ing an Author

My Ele­men­tary School Yeras
My High School Years

PART II: Cre­at­ing Orig­i­nal Pic­ture Books

Hearts and Minds: Illus­trat­ing Children’s Books by Leslie Tryon’
Writ­ing in Col­lab­o­ra­tion: One Plus One is One, or Two by Isabel Cam­poy
When Poetry Becomes Song by Suni Paz.
Learn­ing the Act of Trans­la­tion by Rosalma Zubizarreta

PART III: Writ­ing in Mul­ti­ple Genres

The Rich­ness of Mul­ti­ple Voices
Poetry and I
It’s Play Time!
Telling My Own Life Sto­ries
Cre­at­ing Non-Fiction Books

PART IV: The Read­ers’ Voices

The Trans­for­ma­tive Power of Lan­guage: Alma Flor Ada’s Gift to Her Read­ers Rich­ness of Mul­ti­ple Voices by Janet Hill and Anthony L. Manna

• The Power of Language
• The Mem­oirs
• The Impor­tance of Names and Naming
• The Value of Shared Experience
• Con­clu­sion

Ques­tions Most Fre­quently Asked by Chil­dren
Thank You Let­ters from Chil­dren and Teach­ers
Alma Flor Ada Lit­er­ary Works
Lit­er­ary Pub­li­ca­tions for Adults: Nov­els
Lit­er­ary Pub­li­ca­tions: Children’s Literature

AUTHOR’S NOTE

The invi­ta­tion from Libraries Unlim­ited to write two vol­umes to share with teach­ers, par­ents and librar­i­ans the sto­ries behind my sto­ries was a rare gift. To that moment I had not gone into ana­lyz­ing why I had writ­ten each of my books. It was a beau­ti­ful moment of dis­cov­ery to find out that even the sim­plest or short­est of pic­ture books indeed con­tain an impor­tant part of my life, to delight remem­ber­ing how much my own chil­dren had been inspi­ra­tion for many of my books and to rec­og­nize how much of the val­ues and feel­ings I hold most dearly have moti­vated many of my words.
This book was enriched by the reflec­tions and words of very dear col­lab­o­ra­tors: Isabel Cam­poy, Suni Paz, Leslie Tryon and my own daugh­ter Rosalma Zubizarreta who share their own expe­ri­ences as cre­ators in dif­fer­ent fields.

I felt very much hon­ored by the chap­ter writ­ten by Janet Hill and Anthony L. Manna who had such a gen­er­ous inter­pre­ta­tion of my work.
The joy of writ­ing these books is enhanced when­ever read­ers share with me that my jour­ney of dis­cov­ery has inspired them to reflect on their own journeys.

READERS’ RESPONSES

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