I Love Saturdays y Domingos By: Alma Flor Ada

Just by reading the title, it shows that this book is bilingual. The book caught my attention because more often we are seeing schools develop dual language programs. I think this is such a great idea and so I decided to read this book and decide if it would be a good book to read in such a program.

This is a story about a girl who spends saturdays with her fathers parents. She spends her saturdays with "Grandma and Grandpa". Los Domingos (which are sundays in english) are spent with "Abuelito y Abuelita" whom are her mothers parents. Throughout the story, the little girl goes back and forth between saturdays and los domingos. She explains what she has for breakfast on saturdays in english, and then explains what she has for breakfast on los domingos in spanish. The little girl is definitely fluent in both english and spanish as she explains different activities she does on saturdays and los domingos. For example, she counts her grandmothers owl collection in english, and she counts her other grandmothers chicken eggs in spanish. She talks about animals in english and in spanish. She also talks about origin and stories that her grandparents have told her about her background. At the end the little girl has a birthday and both grandparents come together. She explains that some people say "Happy Birthday" and some say "Feliz Cumpleanos".

I would highly recommend this book to any teacher that wants to incorporate spanish into their curriculum. This could be an effective tool in making some students feel more comfortable in the classroom environment if perhaps there are some students who speak mostly spanish and very little english. I took four years of spanish in highschool and I wanted to see just how much I could remember while reading this book. Even if you don't know spanish, it is easy to infer what the spanish words mean just by looking at the opposite page because the main character describes similar things in both english and spanish.

Aside from this book being a great teaching tool, I think this book would relate to many students. If it doesn't personally relate, this book could spark an interest in learning a new language or at least being introduced to a different culture. I think learning about different cultures is important and this book does just that without being too overwhelming.