Alma Flor Ada

The Golden Cage
La jaula dorada

BOOK DESCRIPTION

A grandson’s desire to find the best gift for his grand­mother results in an explo­ration of giv­ing, love, and free­dom. A good story for dis­cussing extended fam­i­lies, as well as ill­ness and disabilities.

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 given 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.

Many moments of my children’s lives com­bined to inspire this book. They loved birds and over some time raised many birds. I have always felt great ambiva­lence about caged birds, because I love the birds, but I reject the idea of them being in a cage. And, then, at one time, when my aunt Vir­ginia was spend­ing some days at our home she made a very strong state­ment about hav­ing caged birds, and that gave us the energy to end up hav­ing birds in cages.

My chil­dren have always been very devoted to my mother, their grand­mother, and thus it was very nat­ural to use a grandson’s love for his grand­mother as the piv­otal theme in the story.

READERS’ RESPONSES

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