Alma Flor Ada

The Rooster Who Went to His Uncle’s Wedding
El gallo que fue a la boda de su tío

A Latin Amer­i­can Folktale

RECOGNITIONS

One of the Best Books of the Year – Bank Street College

BOOK DESCRIPTION

What can you do if your beak is cov­ered with mud, and the grass refuses to help you… the sheep won’t eat the grass… the dog won’t bite the sheep…? Well if you are a rooster on your way to your uncle’s wed­ding, you’ll ask your friend the sun, and he’ll surely turn things around! Out­stand­ing illus­tra­tions by Kath­leen Kuchera add bril­liant trop­i­cal col­ors to this sunny story.

“Like the tal­ented sto­ry­teller who shares her ver­sion with us now, this enchant­ing cum­mu­la­tive tale has roots in many Spanish-speaking coun­tries around the world, where it has found a delighted audi­ence of chil­dren.” (–Tomie de Paola)

AUTHOR’S NOTE

This is one of the many tales which I received from my Grand­mother, my mother’s mother, who was a fab­u­lous sto­ry­teller. She would tell it to me out­doors, usu­ally on the porch, and would weave into the story any of the ani­mals we could see –a goat, a cow—and the story would change from day to day, becom­ing as alive as our own sur­round­ings. In turn, I have enjoyed telling this story to chil­dren and see­ing them delight as I tell it faster and faster, as the list of char­ac­ters grow. It has also been fun to see chil­dren per­form this story as a play.

REVIEWS

Book­list

“This delight­ful cumu­la­tive tale intro­duces a per­fectly groomed rooster with a gleam­ing beak, who’s on his way to his uncle’s wed­ding. As hunger over­comes him, he pon­ders, “Peck or not peck?” while look­ing at “a sin­gle golden ker­nel of corn” lying in a pud­dle of mud. Peck he does, and he mud­dies his beak as he gob­bles the ker­nel down. Now, how to get his beak clean? The vel­vety grass won’t do it, but the rooster thinks per­haps he can scare the grass into help­ing, if he asks the lamb to eat the grass. The list of char­ac­ters who refuse to help is long. Finally, the rooster’s good friend, the Sun, comes to his res­cue. Each char­ac­ter, when threat­ened by a nat­ural adver­sary, does what it is sup­posed to do, which in the end, helps the rooster. The rooster, a uni­ver­sal folk char­ac­ter human­ized in many cul­tures, is appeal­ing here. The story which was told to Ada by her grand­mother in Cuba will delight young chil­dren with the sheer joy of its repet­i­tive rhythms, and it is par­tic­u­larly appro­pri­ate to be told aloud. The illus­tra­tions, bright with trop­i­cal col­ors, depict a Latin Amer­i­can set­ting. The strongest ele­ment of this Latin Amer­i­can folk­tales is the uni­ver­sal­ity of its theme, which makes it an inter­est­ing addi­tion to the folk­tale col­lec­tion for preschoolers.”

Publisher’s Weekly

The author of The Gold Coin retells a Latin Amer­i­can ver­sion of a famil­iar cumu­la­tive folk story illus­trated in the vibrant col­ors of the trop­ics. In a nar­ra­tive line rem­i­nis­cent of Rosanne Littzinger’s The Old Woman and Her Pig, Ada tells of a rooster who mud­dles his beak en route to his uncle’s wed­ding feast; […] Through har­mo­nious rep­e­ti­tion and singsong rhythms, Ada’s leisurely, con­ver­sa­tional tale neatly mim­ics the cadences of a Tra­di­tional sto­ry­teller. Kuchera’s (Your Skin and Mine) geo­met­ric illus­tra­tions in intense hues of orange and char­treuse evoke the designs of Latin Amer­i­can folk art with their flat edges, sharp lines, zigzags and whorls. […] The artist deserves kudos for her ani­mated ren­der­ing of such nor­mally sta­tic objects as a stick and a blade of grass.”

School Library Journal

Rooster, en route to his uncle’s wed­ding, strug­gles with the dilemma of whether he should risk of get­ting dirty in order to obtain a ker­nel of corn. His hunger over­comes his bet­ter judg­ment and, of course, he winds up “…with a beak full of mud.” This leads into a cumu­la­tive tale that will be famil­iar to any­one who knows “The Old Woman and Her Pig” or any num­ber of its vari­ants. In this case, his quest to get clean is nicely cir­cu­lar: the sun, just com­ing up as the book begins, is the one who agrees to break the chain of refusal, to repay the rooster for greet­ing him each morn­ing. Ada’s lively adap­ta­tion uses eco­nom­i­cal lan­guage with just enough detail to move things along. Vivid hand-colored prints illus­trate the story well. All of the char­ac­ters are fes­tively arrayed: the blades of grass, for exam­ple, play musi­cal instru­ments, and one is wear­ing a gau­cho hat and a cape. The sheep wears a ruf­fled dress and has a bowl of fruit on her head, a la Car­men Miranda. The plain white bor­ders con­tribute to the clean pleas­ing design. The styl­ized pat­terns, with lots of dia­monds and zigzags, have the look of Cen­tral and South Amer­i­can folk art. A solid addi­tion to folk­lore col­lec­tions and a story hour hit as well.

Kirkus Reviews

A cumu­la­tive tale that echoes “The Old Woman and Her Pig.” Since the debonair rooster is so busy preen­ing his feath­ers and pol­ish­ing his beak that he skips break­fast, the ker­nel of corn he finds on his way to the wed­ding is tempt­ing, though it’s in a pud­dle. Seiz­ing it, he mud­dies his shiny beak, and the trou­ble begins. The grass refuses to clean the beak; the dog won’t bite the lamb that won’t eat the grass–and so on, until the sun, grate­ful for the rooster’s daily song, starts to dry out the water, which starts to put out the fire.… This Latin Amer­i­can vari­ant is gen­tler than the famil­iar tale, but just as lively. Kuchera’s dec­o­ra­tive illus­tra­tions, with whim­si­cal per­son­i­fi­ca­tions (espe­cially of the grass, fire, and water) and the ele­gantly styl­ized rooster in lemon, emer­ald, and flame against a bril­liant blue sky, are splen­did. An unusu­ally appeal­ing readaloud. (Folklore/Picture book. 3–8)

READERS’ RESPONSES

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