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At our house, we've recently rediscovered If I Had a Dragon/Si Yo Tuviera un Dragon, by Tom and Amanda Ellery, a book some friends gave to us a couple of years ago. When we first received it, our kids were still too small to get it, but as they're now at preschool age-old enough to appreciate the subjects of siblings and dragons, it's become a storytime favorite.
In If I Had a Dragon/ Si You Tuviera un Dragon, the action starts when the mother instructs her son Morton to play with his baby brother. His baby brother not being so obviously fun to the slightly-older Morton, Morton wishes that the baby become a kite, or a bulldozer, or a dragon instead. As the story unfolds, Morton and baby-as-dragon go on all kinds of adventures that become humorously complicated by the dragon-ness (think flight, size, and fire-breathing-related lios). In the end, Morton realizes that
"I guess a dragon doesn't make a very good playmate after all./ Al fin y al cabo, quizas un dragon no sea el mejor companero de juegos" and discovers the perfect playmate in his baby brother.
Our kids love the happy, hilarious illustrations and the storyline and I love the way the bilingual edition includes a great translation that doesn't lose any of the personality of the original version. We read it in English and Spanish side-by-side, or just in Spanish- either way, it's a hit!
1 comment:
I know that the Ellerys have another book coming to print in May of 2009 from Simon and Schuster. Let us hope that this new book "If I Were a Jungle Animal" will also be picked up by Lectorum and be translated for a bilingual co-edition.
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