Alma Flor Ada

The Song of the Teeny-Tiny Mosquito
El canto del mosquito

BOOK DESCRIPTION

Early one morn­ing a mos­quito is swal­lowed by a frog, who in turn is eaten by a fish, who in turn… This orig­i­nal cumu­la­tive tale has a sur­prise end­ing that delights all read­ers. An excel­lent way to intro­duce the con­cept of the food chain, it is a joy to read, to tell, to chant, or to turn into a play.

CD AND CASSETTE 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.

The orig­i­nal music cre­ated by Suni Paz for El canto del mos­quito com­pli­ments this whim­si­cal cumu­la­tive tale. Her vivid per­for­mance cap­tures the listener’s imag­i­na­tion until it seems that the mos­quito is buzzing right in our ears. pro­fes­sional record­ing of the Eng­lish ver­sion of the story con­veys the magic of the cumu­la­tive tale.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

On the back cover of the Big Book which accom­pa­nies this book, as well as in the cas­sette, I tell the story of hav­ing once invol­un­tar­ily swal­lowed a mos­quito which flew into my mouth as I spoke. Now, I am con­cerned about the wis­dom of such can­did state­ment, since on a school visit a child told me he had enjoyed hear­ing that I eat bugs!

My objec­tive on shar­ing the gen­e­sis of this story was to point out that ideas are all around us, and the small­est event can be the ori­gin of a story. I also like to point out how writ­ing allows us to improve real­ity. My story let me res­cue that poor mos­quito of long ago.

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 vista / 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.

Image Gallery

READERS’ RESPONSES

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