Alma Flor Ada

Strange Visitors
Una extraña visita

Each day of the week a new set of vis­i­tors appears, bring­ing with them rhythm and joy. A won­der­ful book for choral read­ing and play act­ing. Chil­dren learn the days of the week as a game and become acquainted with dif­fer­ent ani­mals and musi­cal instruments.

Authors Note

Writ­ing this book was a plea­sur­able exer­cise. I wrote it specif­i­cally before a visit to a first grade class in Santa Bar­bara, Cal­i­for­nia. I wanted to bring the chil­dren a model that they could use to cre­ate their own books. It’s been a true sat­is­fac­tion to see through the years how many other classes have used the book for the same pur­pose. And a joy to wit­ness how many chil­dren know the text by heart and delight repeat­ing it.

REVIEWS

School Library Journal

About Sto­ries for the Telling: A charm­ing series, illus­trated with water­color and pen-and-ink draw­ings. The sto­ries are told in a humor­ous style and are enhanced through­out by Ada’s gift for lan­guage and poetry. El Canto del mos­quito / The Song of the Teeny Tiny Mos­quito is the droll story of a frog who eats a mos­quito and whose song then sounds like that of a mos­quito. The frog is eaten by a fish, who then sings like a mos­quito, etc. Una extraña visita / Strange Vis­i­tors is a humor­ous count­ing story of the days of the week in rhyme. Me gus­taría tener… / How Happy I Would Be… lists the var­i­ous things “I would like to have…” Again in a counting-book for­mat, the desired items all turn out to be ani­mals involved in unusual activ­i­ties (e.g. two giraffes read­ing with glasses). ¿Quién nac­erá aquí? / Who’s hatch­ing Here?, in con­trast to the oth­ers, is a sci­ence book. Rhyming rid­dles ask which ani­mal will hatch from dif­fer­ent eggs. The eggs are pre­sented in their nat­ural habi­tats; both illus­tra­tions and text hint at the answers.

READERS’ RESPONSES

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