Alma Flor Ada

Mamá Goose: A Latino Nursery Treasury

Bilin­gual Anthol­ogy of Folk­lore for Young Children

BOOK DESCRIPTION

Alma Flor Ada and Isabel Cam­poy, acclaimed authors and schol­ars of Latino lit­er­a­ture, have spent years culling pop­u­lar and beloved lul­la­bies, jump-rope songs, rid­dles, proverbs, and more from all over the Spanish-speaking world. The result is the most com­pre­hen­sive bilin­gual folk­lore col­lec­tion avail­able in this coun­try. Full of charm and humor, rich with the diver­sity of Latino cul­tures, this one-of-a-kind trea­sury is the per­fect intro­duc­tion to Latino folk­lore for Eng­lish speak­ers, and a trove of famil­iar favorites for Span­ish speakers.

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 and in books, like ¡Pío Peep!, MuuMoo, 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: This lovely com­pendium includes lul­la­bies, fin­ger games, lap games, say­ings, nurs­ery rhymes, jump-rope songs, proverbs, rid­dles, tall tales, a bal­lad, birth­day songs, and Christ­mas car­ols. The for­mat is spa­cious, with lots of room for both the Span­ish and Eng­lish text and clear, charm­ing water­color car­toon illus­tra­tions that vary from spreads to small insets. The selec­tions, which are just as much fun to read in Eng­lish as in Span­ish, are won­der­ful exam­ples of para­phras­ing. While not lit­eral trans­la­tions, the gen­eral sense of the rhymes is main­tained in cadence and rhyme. This is a per­fect exam­ple of trans­la­tion as an art form and of the fact that license some­times trumps lit­er­al­ness. A per­fect com­pan­ion vol­ume to the authors’ ¡Pío Peep! (Harper­Collins, 2003).

Book­list

Pre-School–Gr. 2: This packed-to-the-gills vol­ume fea­tures nurs­ery rhymes, rid­dles, say­ings, and songs drawn from the rich tra­di­tions of Spanish-speaking cul­tures. Arranged in thought­fully intro­duced sec­tions such as “Can­ciones de comba / Jump-Rope Songs” and “Adiv­inan­zas / Rid­dles,” the 68 selec­tions appear first in Span­ish, fol­lowed by a loose recast­ing of the orig­i­nal in ital­i­cized Eng­lish. Tracey Hef­fer­nan is cred­ited with “cre­ative edit­ing of the Eng­lish,” a role that extends beyond strict trans­la­tion to pro­duce Eng­lish entries that pre­serve fea­tures such as rhyme, ono­matopoeia, and rep­e­ti­tion. The results occa­sion­ally stray sig­nif­i­cantly from the orig­i­nals’ sense, so read­ers hop­ing to enrich a devel­op­ing sec­ond lan­guage won’t be par­tic­u­larly well served; oth­ers will wish for musi­cal nota­tion and anno­ta­tions about each entry’s cul­tural ori­gins. (Jose-Luis Orozco’s bilin­gual poetry col­lec­tions include more of both.) Still, native Span­ish speak­ers want­ing to share favorite rhymes with chil­dren will rel­ish this book’s breadth–and young speak­ers of either lan­guage will appre­ci­ate the bounc­ing rhythms and non­sense fun. Two indexes, one in Span­ish and one in Eng­lish, con­clude, and light­hearted water­col­ors by Suarez appear through­out. Jen­nifer Mattson

READERS’ RESPONSES

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