Mario Picayo

In my opinion, this book is a great book to have in the classroom to introduce children to the Spanish language. One thing I really liked this book was that it had speech bubbles that contained the text. This allowed for a lot of room for the pictures and gave the book a sort of "graphic novel" feel. The speech bubbles also include English text and Spanish text so that the student can learn Spanish vocabulary while the read the same phrase in English. I also like how this book could be used for an English Language Learning student. Since it has both languages, this same principle could work in reverse where the ELL uses the Spanish text to help them learn English. I also really liked the illustrations that are in this book. They are bold, use bright colors, and are done in a collage style. They really highlight what the book is about and can really help the reader figure out the text. I also liked how the back of the book includes a note from the author which is also included in Spanish and English which adds a personal touch to the book. The big idea of the story was that a smart cat isn't necessarily a good one and to introduce Spanish/English words to readers.… (mere)

Is based off of a real cat that would not leave the dining room table. In the story the cat does everything on the dining room table like eating, sleeping, etc. I really liked that it had English text in one color and the Spanish in a different color through out the book. I would use this in the classroom for early students in the early stage of learning English as well as use it as example for telling a story based of your pet. This idea could be done in many ways like through conversation, presentation, writing, etc.… (mere)