Alma Flor Ada

Celebrate Hanukkah with Bubbe’s Tales
Celebra Hanukkah con un cuento de Bubbe

BOOK DESCRIPTION

Story:

Three Jew­ish sib­lings play with the drei­del and are look­ing for­ward to eat­ing their grandmother’s deli­cious latkes as part of the Hanukkah cel­e­bra­tion. They call their grand­mother with the Yid­dish noun Bubbe.
But there aren’t enough latkes for every­one. Will they all remem­ber Bubbe’s story of gen­eros­ity, or are the latkes too tempt­ing to pass up?

Non-fiction:

An overview of the his­tory of Han­nukah and a descrip­tion of the dif­fer­ent aspects of its cel­e­bra­tion. There is also men­tion, illus­trated with pho­tographs, of other fes­ti­vals around the World that use lights, as Han­nukah does. Dur­ing the Indian Duvali or Fes­ti­val of Lights, Kawan­zaa, Christ­mas, and Vesak’s the cel­e­bra­tions of Buda’s birth­day, all with expla­na­tion of national cel­e­bra­tion. With numer­ous infor­ma­tive photographs.

SERIES DESCRIPTION

Each of the twenty four books in this col­lec­tion ded­i­cated to some of the most impor­tant hol­i­days and fes­tiv­i­ties cel­e­brated in the United States is the com­bi­na­tion of two books in one. The first part is an engag­ing real­is­tic fic­tion story beau­ti­fully illus­trated by a diver­sity of illus­tra­tors. The sec­ond part is a non-fiction piece that explains the his­tory and sig­nif­i­cance of the hol­i­day or cel­e­bra­tion. This sec­ond part is illus­trated with bright and unique pho­tographs that will allow chil­dren to wit­ness the celebration.

The fes­tiv­i­ties addressed include:

• Cel­e­brate Mar­tin Luther King Jr. Day
• Cel­e­brate PowWow
• Cel­e­brate Chi­nese New Year
• Cel­e­brate Hal­loween & Day of the Dead
• Cel­e­brate Mardi Gras
• Cel­e­brate Thanksgiving
• Cel­e­brate St. Patrick’s Day
• Cel­e­brate Hannukah
• Cel­e­brate Cinco de Mayo
• Cel­e­brate Kwanzaa
• Cel­e­brate Fourth of July
• Cel­e­brate Christ­mas & Three Kings Day

For more details in the series and the val­ues it presents see the series descrip­tion: Series Sto­ries to Cel­e­brate / Cuen­tos para cel­e­brar. There is also an indi­vid­ual page, like this, for each of the books in the series.

Les­son plans and ques­tions to guide the Cre­ative Read­ing Dia­logue can be found on the San­til­lanaUSA web­site: www.santillanausa.com/cuentosparacelebrar.htm

CDS DESCRIPTION

There are two CDs with the read­ings of the twelve sto­ries in Eng­lish and two CDs with the read­ings of the twelve sto­ries in Spanish.

The CDs will allow chil­dren to fol­low a pro­fes­sional read­ing aloud indi­vid­u­ally or in groups.

They can be ben­e­fi­cial to chil­dren learn­ing a sec­ond lan­guage, whether Eng­lish or Span­ish, since they will be able to read the book in their stronger lan­guage and then lis­ten to the record­ing in the sec­ond lan­guage, or vice versa.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

The old Jew­ish tale of the Two Broth­ers has always enchanted me, because it shows that one can never be too generous.

I have told that tale many times. I turned it into a play, Los dos her­manos, which is included in my book Explo­ramos, of the series Hag­amos caminos and in the book co-authored with Isabel Cam­poy, Salu­dos al público.

In my book My Name is María Isabel or Me llamo María Isabel the pro­tag­o­nists finds a happy end­ing thanks to the song “Las veli­tas de Hanuka,” cre­ated by my good friend and excel­lent com­poser Suni Paz.

The text to the song and the musi­cal nota­tion can be found in the poetry anthol­ogy Días y días de poesía, in the selec­tion cor­re­spond­ing to Decem­ber 20, page 84.

Since I am only one of the authors of this book. You can visit www.isabelcampoy.com to read what the other author has to say.

Many read­ers are intrigued about how two authors col­lab­o­rate to write a book. If you share this curios­ity you may enjoy read­ing how Isabel Cam­poy explains this expe­ri­ence in the chap­ter authored by her “Writ­ing in Col­lab­o­ra­tion: One plus One is One or Two” in the book Alma Flor Ada and You, vol­ume II pub­lished by Libraries Unlimited.

CORRELATIONS

Chil­dren who read this book may want to act Bubbe’s tale as a play. They will find it dra­ma­tized as the play Los dos her­manos included in the book Salu­dos al público in the Colec­ción ¡Arriba el telón! of The­atre Series of Cielo abierto.

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.