building

Kindergarten-Grade 3. When her granddaughter Lucy is sick, Mama Provi makes a big pot of arroz con pollo for her and sets off on the journey from her first-floor apartment to Lucy's eighth-floor home in the same building. On each floor, Mama Provi trades a bit of her rice with a different neighbor, receiving a new type of food each time. By the time she finally reaches Lucy, the two have a tremendous and varied feast. Mama Provi makes each trade 'en un dos por tres' ('something like 'lickety-split''), a pleasant refrain repeated throughout. Most readers will figure out where the rather wordy story is going right away, so the final meal is rather anticlimactic. Though the action of trading foods is repeated several times, the language and conversations are different enough to avoid monotony. The watercolor illustrations also add interest, offering varied perspectives of hallways, stairs, and apartments. The soft colors used for the people's clothes and food stand out nicely from the tans and off-whites in the background, reinforcing the warmth of the building's community. The foods and neighbors are almost too neatly varied in a multicultural fashion, as Se?or Rivera offers black beans; Mrs. Johnson, an African American, trades collard greens; and Mrs. Woo gives tea. The book avoids preachiness, however, by focusing on the neighborliness rather than the individuals' backgrounds. The result is a thoughtful, gentle, and satisfying story.?Steven Engelfried, West Linn Public Library, ORCopyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

building 2016-11-10T17:54:00-08:00 Rating: 4.5 Diposkan Oleh: movie time