Alma Flor Ada

Mediopollito / Half-chicken

A Latin Amer­i­can Folk­tale in a Bilin­gual Edition

RECOGNITIONS

Aesop Award Acco­lade – Amer­i­can Folk­lore Asso­ci­a­tion
Pick of the Lists – Amer­i­can Book­sellers Asso­ci­a­tion
Amer­i­cas Com­mended List

BOOK DESCRIPTION

Have you ever seen a weather vane? Do you know why there is a lit­tle rooster on the top, spin­ning around to tell us which way the wind is blow­ing? Here is the answer in this old, old story about a very spe­cial chicken. With only one eye, one leg, and one wing, Half-Chicken sets off to see the world. His adven­tures take him far and wide, until at last he’s car­ried straight to the top in this lively, humor­ous retelling, in Span­ish and Eng­lish, of a tra­di­tional folk­tale. This tra­di­tional His­panic folk­tale was set in colo­nial Mex­ico, to pro­vide chil­dren with a glimpse of that period of Mex­i­can history.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

As a young child I loved lis­ten­ing to my grand­mother tell this story. Later this tale became a favorite for my chil­dren. When­ever I go, I look for weather vanes, since Half-chicken sup­pos­edly was the first weather vane. I enjoy see­ing how many dif­fer­ent shapes peo­ple have thought for this friendly arti­fact to tell the direc­tion of the wind. One of my dreams is some­day to travel around the world tak­ing pic­tures of all the dif­fer­ent weather vanes.

On retelling this story which my grand­mother loved to tell, I chose her ver­sion, of col­lab­o­ra­tion, as opposed to other ver­sions in which Half-chicken refuses to help when requested to do so, and ends up being pun­ished, instead of helped. I know how much it meat to me as a child that Half-chicken mis­ad­ven­tures would have a sat­is­fy­ing ending.

The wel­com­ing received by the book and the joy of the hun­dreds of chil­dren to whom I have told the story add con­stantly to my unend­ing grat­i­tude towards my grandmother.

REVIEWS

School Library Journal

Pre-School–Grade 2: An adap­ta­tion of a Span­ish folk­tale that explains the ori­gin of weather vanes. The hatch­ing of a chick with only one wing, one leg, one eye, and half the usual num­ber of feath­ers raises quite a stir on a colo­nial Mex­i­can ranch. All of the atten­tion encour­ages the vain Mediopol­lito, Half-Chicken (as he is called), to seek his for­tune. He encoun­ters, in turn, fire, water, and wind and assists each of them dur­ing the course of his trip “to Mex­ico City to see the court of the viceroy!” In return, the ele­ments come to the fowl’s aid and Half-Chicken finds his right­ful place in the scheme of things. The repet­i­tive and pre­dictable nature of the tale makes it an appro­pri­ate read-aloud choice. The trans­la­tion retains the mean­ing and fla­vor of the orig­i­nal Span­ish, which appears along­side the Eng­lish on each double-page spread. The folksy and brightly col­ored illus­tra­tions, “inspired by the pat­terns and tex­ture of Mex­i­can murals,” pro­vide lively and inter­est­ing visual infor­ma­tion. While the char­ac­ters are at times a bit car­i­ca­tured, this title remains a good addi­tion to folk­lore col­lec­tions. –Gra­ciela Ital­iano, Weber State Uni­ver­sity, Ogden, UT

Book­list

Ages 4–8: Hip hop hip hop, Half-Chicken is off to Mex­ico City to see the court of the viceroy. Along the way, he helps the stream, the fire, and the wind, and they, in turn, help Half-Chicken when the viceroy’s cook tries to turn him into chicken soup. Finally, the wind blows Half-Chicken to safety atop a palace tower. “And from that day on, weath­er­cocks have stood on their only leg, see­ing every­thing that hap­pens below, and point­ing whichever way their friend the wind blows.” Ada gives her riotous retelling of this tra­di­tional folk­tale about the vain but help­ful Half-Chicken a fla­vor­ful colo­nial Mex­i­can set­ting. Howard matches the frol­ic­some mood and His­panic set­ting with exu­ber­ant and glow­ing illus­tra­tions inspired by the pat­terns and tex­tures of Mex­i­can murals. Pre­sented in a bilin­gual for­mat and brim­ming with silli­ness and the sim­ple rep­e­ti­tion that chil­dren savor, this pic­ture book is a jewel that will add a spicy sparkle to any folk­tale col­lec­tion. –Annie Ayres.

The Horn Book

Noted trans­la­tor and writer Ada has set her bilin­gual retelling of this tra­di­tional tale from Spain in colo­nial Mex­ico. As the humor­ous rather off-beat story opens, a mother hen hatches a chick with “only one wing, one leg, only one eye, and only half as many feath­ers as the other chicks.” Half-Chicken, as he comes to be known, gets a swelled (half) head from all the atten­tion he attracts and decides to travel to Mex­ico City to show his unique­ness to the viceroy. Off he hops, stop­ping on his urgent quest only to unblock a stream impeded by branches, fan a small fire that is about to go out, and untan­gle a wind caught up in some bushes.”

“Half-Chicken finally reaches the viceroy palace, but instead of the hero’s wel­come he expects, the lit­tle rooster is greeted with jeers and igno­min­iously thrown into a ket­tle on the kitchen fire. The good deeds Half-Chicken per­formed on his jour­ney, how­ever, lit­er­ally get him out of hot water: the grate­ful fire tells the water to jump on him and put him out, and the water com­plies. Then, tossed out of the win­dow by the frus­trated cook, Half-Chicken is again res­cued, this time by the wind, who blows him to the top of a tower. There, trans­formed into a weather-vane, he is for­ever safe from cook­ing pots. Ada’s lib­eral use of rep­e­ti­tion, espe­cially in describ­ing Half-Chicken’s gait –“hip hop hip hop” –and the con­ven­tion of the three helpers keep this rather unusual story grounded, with Howard’s vibrant, jaunty illus­tra­tions, rich in warm reds and golds and lively with pat­tern and tex­ture, move the story for­ward with great energy. Her humor­ous depic­tion of poor scrawny Half-Chicken is par­tic­u­larly suc­cess­ful. ” (M.V.P., The Horn Book. November/December 1995)

Pick of the Lists

“A tra­di­tional Span­ish folk­tale set in Mex­ico stretch­ing the tale of a vain half-chicken who becomes a weather vane. Writ­ten in both Span­ish and Eng­lish (with full text in both lan­guages), it is a wel­come addi­tion to the bilin­gual shelf. It is also a won­der­ful tale, paint­ing the humor and delight of Mex­ico for those who can­not read or speak Span­ish.” (“Pick of the Lists”, Amer­i­can Book­seller Mag­a­zine. August 1995)

Library Talk

“Alma Flor Ada’s Medio Pollito/Half-Chicken spins a Latin-American ver­sion of a Span­ish tale explain­ing why weather vanes stand on one leg. Eng­lish is one side of the dou­ble pages. Span­ish on the other. A chick is born with only one wing and leg: a half chicken. He decides he is impor­tant enough to go to the viceroy’s court in Mex­ico City. On the way he helps some water, fire, and wind. When he ends up in a cook­ing pot in the viceroy’s palace, the ele­ments help him escape to a rooftop, where he remains. Repeated themes will read well aloud. Kim Howard’s mixed-media double-page scenes present styl­ized details, often hav­ing the look of batik on cloth.” (Library Talk. May/June, 19996)

UC Davis School of Education

Sum­mary: Alma Flor Ada retells a folk­tale in Span­ish and Eng­lish. The folk­tale is about how the weather vane orig­i­nated. It is all told through the main char­ac­ter, Mediopol­lito, who is not an ordi­nary chick.

Rec­om­men­da­tion for Par­ents: One of the most obvi­ous ben­e­fits to this book is the fact that it is bilin­gual. Chil­dren should be exposed to dif­fer­ent lan­guages. The illus­traitions are col­or­ful and vivid. The book also has a very impor­tant mes­sage: it is ok to be dif­fer­ent because we all have some­thing to offer… More » — UC Davis School of Edu­ca­tion, Read Aloud Recommendations

Amer­i­cas Com­mended List

This well-done bilin­gual folk­tale explains why the weather vane has a lit­tle rooster on one end that spins around to show which way the wind is blow­ing. In con­trast to the Ugly Duck­ling, here the unique and unlike-others chicken becomes vain from all the atten­tion! Read­ers will find them­selves explor­ing the unusual and bril­liant illustrations.

Dozens of links to les­son plans, activ­i­ties, and work­sheets for all books in the series.
http://www.loveland.k12.oh.us/district/ technology/itech/les/reading/h.htm
http://urbanext.illinois.edu/eggs/res33-suggested.html
http://greatkidbooks.blogspot.com

READERS’ RESPONSES

Wel­come Read­ers! Click to hear an inter­ac­tive pre­sen­ta­tion by Mrs. Yencho’s 3rd Grade Rockin Read­ers! Enjoy!

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.