Alma Flor Ada

The Empty Piñata
La piñata vacía

BOOK DESCRIPTION

An empty piñata pro­vides the occa­sion for this gen­tle tale of shar­ing, gen­eros­ity and reci­procity. Elena spends all of her pocket money buy­ing presents for oth­ers… How will her piñata get filled?

One of the beloved titles of the series Sto­ries the Year’ Round, or in Span­ish, Cuen­tos para todo el año. The com­plete sto­ries of the series are:

SPRING
A Rose with Wings
A Sur­prise for Mother Rab­bit
The Empty Piñata

PRIMAVERA
Rosa alada
La sor­presa de Mamá Coneja
La piñata vacía

SUMMER
How the Rain­bow Came to Be
After the Storm
In the Cow’s Backyard

VERANO
Cómo nació el arco iris
Después de la tor­menta
La hamaca de la vaca

FALL
The Kite
What Are Ghosts Afraid Of?
“Turkey for Thanks­giv­ing?” “No, Thanks!”

OTOÑO
El papalote
El susto de los fan­tas­mas
–¿Pavo para la Cena de Gra­cias? –No, gracias.

WINTER
The Golden Cage
I Don’t Want to Melt
It Wasn’t Me

INVIERNO
La jaula dorada
¡No quiero der­re­tirme!
No fui yo

CDS AND CASSETTES DESCRIPTION

There is a spe­cial value to lis­ten­ing to a books read by the author. Such record­ings show just where the author wishes to con­vey feel­ings and emo­tions, empha­sis and sus­pense. When the text is put to music it acquires addi­tional inter­est for children.

I par­tic­u­larly like to read aloud and to record my read­ings so, for me, it was par­tic­u­larly joy­ful to record these twelve sto­ries in Eng­lish and Spanish.

The sto­ries can be found in indi­vid­ual cas­settes in Eng­lish and Span­ish, one for each book of the series, or in CDs in Eng­lish and Span­ish ver­sions. Each of the CDs con­tains the twelve sto­ries of the series.

A Spe­cial Bonus

Because these sto­ries have been so beloved by chil­dren, I con­ceived the idea of giv­ing them an extra dimen­sion. I have rewrit­ten the 12 sto­ries in Span­ish in verse for­mat. And Suni Paz, with her incom­pa­ra­ble cre­ativ­ity, has put them to music. So the Span­ish cas­settes and CD con­tain not only the story as pub­lished in the book told by me, but also the story retold in verse form and sang by Suni.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

The twelve books of this series are some of my best well known books among bilin­gual teach­ers and their stu­dents. They are also very dear to my heart since the inspi­ra­tion for most of them comes from my own children’s childhood.

The major source of inspi­ra­tion for this book comes from my own children’s gen­eros­ity. They were always ready not only to share but also to give away what they had.

They loved piñatas, which were not read­ily avail­able then as they are now.

I had learned how to make piñatas from my mother, and made some for their birth­days when we lived in Perú, where the piñatas were a total novelty.

In Cal­i­for­nia we were able to get them in the bar­rio. Once, because of Miguel’s love for birds I brought him a piñata in the form of a green par­rot all the way from Mex­ico. He cher­ished it and kept it for a long time as a dec­o­ra­tion in his room.

That piñata, which never held candy inside, but which held other valu­able things, thoughts, feel­ings and dreams was the inspi­ra­tion for this story of an empty piñata that gets filled thanks to the gen­eros­ity of Elena.

I chose for the char­ac­ter the name of a very beloved teacher, my pro­fes­sor at the Uni­ver­si­dad Com­plutense in Madrid, and dear friend, Elena Catena, a very small way of hon­or­ing a great woman.

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READERS’ RESPONSES

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