Alma Flor Ada

The Christmas Tree/ El árbol de Navidad

BOOK DESCRIPTION

This delight­ful cumu­la­tive text, in both Eng­lish and Span­ish, radi­ates the joy of hol­i­day tra­di­tions and the warmth of fam­ily love. An excel­lent book for emer­gent read­ers, which can eas­ily be trans­formed into a sim­ple play. Illus­trated with pow­er­ful col­ors by Terry Ibáñez.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Christ­mas was always a very spe­cial sea­son of the year for me as a child, and later a won­der­ful time to share with my chil­dren and our large fam­ily. Some of the names of the char­ac­ters in the story are names of real mem­bers of my fam­ily like my son Alfonso, and my won­der­ful aunt Mireya. For some real life infor­ma­tion on our unusual Christ­mas cel­e­bra­tion, you can look up “Christ­mas for All” (in Under the Royal Palms) “Navi­dades para todos” (en Bajo las pal­mas reales).

REVIEWS

School Library Journal

The meter and appeal­ing rhyme scheme of the cumu­la­tive verses appar­ent in the Span­ish text are miss­ing in the Eng­lish ver­sion. The sim­ple story cen­ters on a Christ­mas tree and the joy it brings to those who assem­ble to dec­o­rate it. Straight­for­ward sen­tences describe, first in Eng­lish, then in Span­ish, one thing that each fam­ily mem­ber con­tributes to the tree. As each dec­o­ra­tion is repeated, the refrain grows longer. “Look at the beau­ti­ful Christ­mas tree/with the bright candle/Grandma lit,/the candy cane/Grandpa hung,/the sleigh/Uncle Iri­neo painted,” etc. The art­work, done in acrylic paint on black paper, fea­tures deeply sat­u­rated back­ground shades of red, orange, blue, green, and vio­let. The fig­ures are por­trayed in a prim­i­tive, folk-art style and the dark hues cho­sen for the back­grounds and fes­tive, dec­o­ra­tive bor­ders give them depth and tex­ture. A visu­ally attrac­tive addi­tion espe­cially for bilin­gual and Spanish-language collections.

Pub­lish­ers Weekly

“One by one mem­bers of a fam­ily add dec­o­ra­tions to their Christ­mas tree, and Ada’s cumu­la­tive text charts their offer­ings –from Grandma’s can­dle to Uncle Irineo’s painted sleight orna­ment. With a line of text in Eng­lish fol­lowed by the line in rhyming Span­ish, the quiet grace­ful nar­ra­tive is com­ple­mented by Ybáñez’s folk-art style illus­tra­tions, ren­dered in acrylic on black paper. Sim­ple bor­ders start out incor­po­rat­ing a sin­gle visual ele­ment –candy cane, stars, a spring of ever­green –and grow grad­u­ally more intri­cate as addi­tional orna­ments are added.” (Pub­lish­ers Weekly, Octo­ber 1997).

School Library Journal

“[…] The sim­ple story cen­ters on a Christ­mas tree and the joy it brings to those who assem­ble to dec­o­rate it. Straight­for­ward sen­tences describe, first in Eng­lish, then in Span­ish, one thing that each fam­ily mem­ber con­tributes to the tree. As each dec­o­ra­tion is repeated the refrain grows longer. “Look at the beau­ti­ful Christ­mas tree / with the candy cane / Grandpa hung, / the sleigh / Uncle Iri­neo painted,” etc. The art work, done in acrylic paint on black paper, fea­tures deeply sat­u­rated back­ground shades of red, orange, blue, green, and vio­let. The fig­ures are por­trayed in a prim­i­tive folk-art style and the dark hues cho­sen for the back­grounds and fes­tive dec­o­ra­tive bor­ders give them depth and tex­ture. A visu­ally attrac­tive addi­tion espe­cially for bilin­gual and Spanish-language col­lec­tions.” (School Library Jour­nal, Novem­ber 1997).

READERS’ RESPONSES

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