Who is Hatching Here?
¿Quién nacerá aquí?
BOOK DESCRIPTION
On every new spread of this engaging book, the reader is invited to guess, based on the poems and illustrations, what animal will hatch from a different set of eggs. Chicken and mosquitoes, turtles and hummingbirds, butterflies and crocodiles, will give children an experience of the rich diversity of our planet and of the varied creatures that start their lives as eggs. Children will delight in predicting, as well as in the freshness of the rhymes and the exciting watercolors. In the process, they also learn about the different ways in which various animals lay their eggs and the process that occurs before their off springs continue the life chain.
Many teachers have not being able to resist framing the outstanding illustrations by Viví Escrivá, particularly by taking the pages of the Big Books.
CD AND CASSETTE DESCRIPTION
There is a special value to listening to a book 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 recording for this predictable book invites children to guess, through the clues in the rhyming text, who will be the next animal hatching from a certain group of eggs. In her performance of the music Suni created for this book she incorporates special sound effects to contribute to the predictable clues.
These extraordinary recordings have been produced in individual cassettes in English and Spanish. There are also CDs with English and Spanish versions. Each of the CDs contains the five books of the series.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
My son Miguel had great fascination for birds. He loved watching and studying them. We even got to raise two wild birds, fallen from their nests, first a bluejay, later a robin. Many years later, as an adult, my daughter Rosalma was able to raise a bird who felt from its nest and landed in front of her doorstep. Raising baby birds is not an easy task, and many times proves unsuccessful, but what a joy when they manage to survive.
While we lived in Lima, Perú, my children delighted in observing the butterflies laying their eggs on the ñorbo vine outside of my studio window, as I have describes in speaking about A Rose With Wings or Rosa alada. All of these experiences, as well as the many hours I spent in my childhood watching the turtles and frogs in the river, observing the mosquitoes larvae on the surface of the tinajones, the large clay jars that collect rain water, and keeping tadpoles in a fish tank until they developed into frogs, all led to the creation of this book.
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.
READERS’ RESPONSES
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