Book Review: Yely's Holiday Traditions / Las Tradiciones Navideñas de Yely by the Read Conmigo Team

 

Book: Yely's Holiday Traditions / Las Tradiciones Navideñas de Yely

Authors: Read Conmigo Team

Illustrator: Justin Dial

Publisher: Infinity Insurance

Publication date: 2015

Categories: 

Supports Diverse Protagonist

Picture Book 

Bilingual

Online Material

Lexile Score: Not Available

Target Audience: ages 5 & up

Brief Summary

Yely has just recently moved to the United States and now her class is doing presentations on holiday traditions. She doesn't know what she can bring and she doesn't speak English that well. On her way home from school she comes across her friends (which are all zoo animals) at the park. She asks them to help her and they all tell her the traditions they have. She combine all of those traditions and with the help of her friends, she has a perfect presentation.

Evaluation: 30/32

Illustration - 4

Storyline - 4

Appropriateness - 4

Problems/Resolutions - 4

Stereotyping - 4

Relatability - 3

Readability/Cohesiveness - 3

Critical Thinking -4

This is a book that all students could read to learn a little bit of Spanish while thinking about the different holiday traditions they celebrate. This book could be used around the holiday season when students are learning about how all different cultures celebrate the holidays. I would use this book in my classroom.

Literary Elements

1. Dialogue -The dialogue in this book is very smooth and allows the reader to follow along and know exactly who is talking.

2. Flashback - The author creates flashbacks of all of Yely's friends when they think back to the times they have celebrated a holiday at home. The flashback provides good information and each illustration depicts the flashback so readers can see exactly what the character is talking about.

3. Personification - At the beginning of this book, you wouldn't expect there to be any personification until you get to the park and all of Yely's friends are animals such as a giraffe, a lion, a llama, a chicken and a few more. Each animal tells their holiday tradition and this shows perfect examples of personification. Giving something human qualities provides a bit of humor and excitement to the story. If I were to teach a lesson on personification, I would use this book and others to show a writer can use this technique to change up the story a bit. The students could write a story similar to Yely's and use animals to tell a story.