Doña Flor may be a giant, but she's well-beloved by her human and animal neighbors. The kindhearted woman carries children to school, shares her tortillas as building materials, speaks to animals, and embraces the wind to calm down a stormy night. When the people of her pueblo become scared of a giant puma they've heard roaming the neighborhood, Doña Flor decides to intervene. After several days of searching, she discovers a small cub who has been amusing himself amplifying his voice over the valley. The two adopt each other, and Doña Flor and the pumito return to the now-peaceful village. Raul Colón's illustrations are beautiful, and it's easy to see why this book won the Pura Belpré award for artwork (it was also an honor book for Pat Mora's work as an author). The mythical quality of the book is enchanting, and Doña Flor is a sympathetic and charming character. The sprinkling of Spanish throughout the book should be familiar to Spanish-speaking students and help others expand their vocabularies, and the story is respectful of Latino culture.
I'm not sure yet how I plan to use this book in the classroom. It's so lovely that I may just use it as a read aloud, without packing on more activities--this is certainly a book that could encourage children to read for enjoyment. As a self-proclaimed "Tall Tale," Doña Flor would also be a good addition to the second grade unit on fairy tales and folk tales, and could even be used to inspire students to write their own tall tales. This would also be a good book to use in a social development curriculum, using Doña Flor's kindness and contributions to her community as a model for students. It might even be extended to investigate and discuss humans' relationships to nature as well as each other.
No comments:
Post a Comment