Off We Go to Mexico: An Adventure in the Sun is a festival of color and culture for every young reader! Laurie Krebs’ poetic language offers a taste of the history and culture in Mexico. Christopher Corr splashes each page with bold lively scenes that represent the beauty of Mexico. The sing-song text is short, but each page offers a wealth of information on which a reader might dwell for lengths of time. On each spread, the left page displays an English- Spanish glossary of words found in Krebs’ rich text on the right page. Corr’s brilliant illustrations pair with both the English words in the text and the Spanish word dictionary to serve as a powerful picture glossary.
As the text and illustrations work together to enhance language development, they also collaboratively expose key historical and cultural elements of life in Mexico. Young American readers will enjoy relating their American lives to the colorful mountains, tunnels, markets, and parades of Mexico. Ancient pyramids and mariachi bands will capture their interest as they wonder about another part of the world. For young readers native to Mexico, the story will encourage celebration of their language, history, and culture.
This dazzling picture book is exciting when merely glancing at it; it is also an exciting opportunity to introduce multiculturalism to young readers. The celebratory views of Mexico offered in this book are a welcome replacement for the stereotypical views of Mexico to which many young readers have been exposed. Perhaps the beautiful migrating monarch butterflies depicted in the story truly highlight the celebration of diversity. These beautiful butterflies call both America and Mexico home at different times and they celebrate wherever they go.
As an aside, I was excited to discover that author Laurie Krebs currently resides in Williamsburg, VA. It's exciting to know that we have such positive role models and creative artists in our midsts!! Find out more about Laurie Krebs on her webpage.
This sounds like a great book to give to children. It teaches them Spanish, it introduces them to multiculturalism, and it helps them become more literate...all of that in one book! You do a great job at describing the different aspects and strengths of this book. I'm definitely going to use it in one of my classes.
ReplyDeleteI'm so excited to see the pictures for this book. I love all of the opportunities for students to explore another culture. Good find!
ReplyDeleteThis would be an excellent book to read if you had a Spanish speaking ESL student in your class. How cool to use this book that they will understand and relate to, to allow them to teach some of their language and culture first hand to their peers? Awesome resource to keep in mind.
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