BEA'S BOOK NOOK "I can't imagine a man really enjoying a book and reading it only once." C. S. Lewis “If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.” ― Oscar Wilde

Saturday, July 26, 2014

Bea Reviews 10 Little Fish by Harriet Ziefert, Illustated by Elliot Kreloff

Publisher: Blue Apple Books
Series: ¡Hola, English!
Format Read: egalley
Source: the publisher in exchange for an honest review
Release Date: Ocotber 14, 2014
Buying Links: Amazon* | Book Depository* | Barnes & Noble
* affiliate links; the blog receives a small commission from purchases made through these links.

Blurb from goodreads:
Teachers and parents of ESL students will cheer when they discover the ¡Hola, English! series, as will those seeking to expose English-speaking kids to Spanish. Ten Little Fish combines numbers with simple adjectives ("fish above, fish below; seven fish, fast and slow") and simple verbs ("swim and dive fish, here are five fish").

Bea's Thoughts:

I love the idea of a dual language book but the execution can be more difficult. This book (and from what I can tell, all the books in the series) fails to provide a pronunciation guide for either language. So listeners will have to hope that the reader can correctly read and pronounce all the words in both languages.

Overlooking that basic flaw, the book introduces children to simple numbers, nouns, verbs, and adjectives in both languages. The book was reminiscent at times of Red Fish, Blue Fish but without that book's whimsy. Though, the artwork is whimsical, bright, and cheerful. Toddlers will enjoy looking at the pictures and talking about them. There's an attempt at rhyming, and a few occasions when Ziefert is able to achieve rhyming a phrase or sentence in both English and Spanish. Usually though, the rhyme happens in just one of the languages. The text is simple and easy for young readers to follow along.

Verdict: Could do better being a dual language book, but cute pictures and some rhyming make for an enjoyable book.

4 comments:

  1. You make a good point about the difficulty of writing good bilingual books, and the usefulness of a pronunciation guide. I studied Spanish for enough years to have half-way decent pronunciation, but if it were French and English, I'd be sunk.

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    Replies
    1. I'm the same way with Spanish. I've read several in this series and they all lack a pronunciation guide, which is unfortunate. They're cute but as a dual language, they're meh.

      Delete
  2. My review was very similar. Great idea, but missed the boat.

    ReplyDelete

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