Friday, January 26, 2018

Review of the beautiful, nursery rhymes book, La Madre Goose



La Madre Goose is a beautiful, illustrated book that gives a new twist to old nursery rhymes. This twist is given by incorporating Spanish words to rhymes like This Little Cerdo went to the Market, who then stays at home and roasted carne and The Itsy Arañita, who climbed the water spout, down came la lluvia and washed la araña out.  
The integration of the Spanish words is a perfect tool to introduce the Spanish language to non-Spanish speakers. A glossary with all the Spanish words that are used in the book is appended. This glossary also includes the pronunciation of the words as well as the meaning in English.  
The words of this book are accompanied by precious illustrations which captured, perfectly, the essence of the rhymes giving the book a feeling of coziness and warmth. 
La Madre Goose won the Best Book Award, of the Chicago Public Libraries, 2016.
The author of this book is Susan Middleton Elya. Susan began writing when she was a young girl and wrote poems and songs. Before becoming a children's picture book author, Susan was a teacher. She also earned a degree in Spanish. Susan is the author of 22 pictures books. Say Hola to SpanishCowboy José, and F is or Fiesta are among her published work.

The illustrator of this book is Juana Martínez-Neal. Juana was born in Perú. She is the illustrator of La Madre Goose and La Princesa and the Pea, both written by Susan Middleton Elya. Juana was named to the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY) Illustration Honor list in 2014 and was awarded the SCBWI Portfolio Showcase Grand Prize in 2012.  Juana's first book as an author-illustrator will be published in English and Spanish in April 2018.




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This review is part of the Multicultural Children's Book Day, to be celebrated on January 28,2018.
You can follow it on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/MulticulturalChildrensBookDay/ and on
Twitter by #ReadYourWorld, #MCBD2018


Multicultural Children’s Book Day 2018 (1/27/18) is in its 5th year and was founded by Valarie Budayr from Jump Into A Book and Mia Wenjen from PragmaticMom. Our mission is to raise awareness of the ongoing need to include kids’ books that celebrate diversity in home and school bookshelves while also working diligently to get more of these types of books into the hands of young readers, parents, and educators.

Current Sponsors:  MCBD 2018 is honored to have some amazing Sponsors on board.



2018 MCBD Medallion Sponsors





2018 Author Sponsors Honorary Author Sponsors: Author/Illustrator Aram Kim and Author/Illustrator Juana Medina Author Janet Balletta, Author Susan Bernardo,  Author Carmen Bernier-Grand, Author Tasheba Berry-McLaren and Space2Launch, Bollywood Groove Books, Author Anne Broyles,  Author Kathleen Burkinshaw, Author Eugenia Chu, Author Lesa Cline-Ransome, Author Medeia Cohan and Shade 7 Publishing, Desi Babies, Author Dani Dixon and Tumble Creek Press, Author Judy Dodge Cummings, Author D.G. Driver, Author Nicole Fenner and Sister Girl Publishing, Debbi Michiko Florence, Author Josh Funk, Author Maria Gianferrari, Author Daphnie Glenn, Globe Smart Kids, Author Kimberly Gordon Biddle, Author Quentin Holmes, Author Esther Iverem, Jennifer Joseph: Alphabet Oddities, Author Kizzie Jones, Author Faith L Justice , Author P.J. LaRue and MysticPrincesses.com, Author Karen Leggett Abouraya, Author Sylvia Liu, Author Sherri Maret, Author Melissa Martin Ph.D., Author Lesli Mitchell, Pinky Mukhi and We Are One, Author Miranda Paul, Author Carlotta Penn, Real Dads Read, Greg Ransom, Author Sandra L. Richards, RealMVPKids Author Andrea Scott, Alva Sachs and Three Wishes Publishing, Shelly Bean the Sports Queen,  Author Sarah Stevenson, Author Gayle H. Swift Author Elsa Takaoka, Author Christine Taylor-Butler, Nicholette Thomas and  MFL Publishing  Author Andrea Y. Wang, Author Jane Whittingham  Author Natasha Yim
We’d like to also give a shout-out to MCBD’s impressive CoHost Team who not only hosts the book review link-up on celebration day, but who also works tirelessly to spread the word of this event. View our CoHosts HERE.
TWITTER PARTY Sponsored by Scholastic Book Clubs: MCBD’s super-popular (and crazy-fun) annual Twitter Party will be held 1/27/18 at 9:00pm.
Join the conversation and win one of 12-5 book bundles and one Grand Prize Book Bundle (12 books) that will be given away at the party! http://multiculturalchildrensbookday.com/twitter-party-great-conversations-fun-prizes-chance-readyourworld-1-27-18/
Free Multicultural Books for Teachers: http://bit.ly/1kGZrta
Free Empathy Classroom Kit for Homeschoolers, Organizations, Librarians, and Educators: http://multiculturalchildrensbookday.com/teacher-classroom-empathy-kit/
Hashtag: Don’t forget to connect with us on social media and be sure and look for/use our official hashtag #ReadYourWorld.

Thursday, January 4, 2018

Dating nowadays...at your 40's 






I am a 48-year-old woman who was married for 20 something years and after all that time with the same man (as my mom says, lol) I got a divorce. You know what does that means, right. You are single, after all that time, and you are lost in this new world for you, the dating world.  You might not know what to do and you will, most certainly, receive advice or opinions from a lot of people (friends, family, coworkers, etc.). Everybody nowadays talks about dating as if they are expert on the material.
If you go online you will find a lot of material about dating. The ones I like most are all these “pieces of advice” of things you should or shouldn't do when you are dating. Let me share with you some of them. I’m pretty sure you’ll know a couple. You should not kiss until the second date and/or not have sex until the third. If you do any of the two, your relationship will be doomed. Another one is not to text him first; you should let him do it first because he has to chase you, as well as, do not text him again if he hasn’t replied to you. You should just leave it like that, even if you want to tell him something new. Don’t ask him out is another "advice". He can ask you out any time he wants and as many times he wants but you shouldn't because then he might think you are desperate. Another advice is that one should play hard to get, always, not make it too easy for him. A piece of text advice I found interesting is to wait more than 10 minutes before replying to a text and if he took time to reply to yours, then, you should take the double of that time to reply to him. This is to show him that you’re not available for him all the time. The following one, I think it's ridiculous: you should treat the guy badly because they like that, "bad girls". Really? I guess I’m screwed with this one since I’m a good girl. These are some of the "pieces of advice" you can find on the Internet. Incredible, right. The funny thing is that there's a lot of women who follow them and men who want the women to do so. 
I'm not into these silly "pieces of advice", what you see is what you get with me. I’m not getting any younger and I’m not into playing games. I’m straightforward and will share my feelings every time. If I like him I will say so, if I will like to see him I will say it too. I will ask and share my feelings. I will text when I want and reply, most of the time, right away as I do with everyone. I'm a caring woman, so if I feel like sending a text saying that I hope he made it fine, or to wish a happy day, I will do so.
We are not teenagers anymore. We are adults and we have to behave like one.
I know there's a great man for me out there, who will love and respect me. Maybe I'm about to meet him or, perhaps, I already did. Who knows? I just hope that he isn't into games either, likes to share freely his feelings with me (even if I’m not going to like what he feels), and is not following any of these "rules" or "advice" (LOL). He follows his heart, just like me.



In the meantime...I’ll be enjoying this ride.
Share with me what you think about dating, I will love to know!
Take care, Tere