Marimba!: Animales from A to Z Book

Title: Marimba! Animales from A to Z
Author: Pat Mora
Illustrator: Doug Cushman
Genre: Alphabet Book
Theme(s): Alphabet, community coming together
Opening line/sentence: "Once a year, the singing monkey croons the keepers to sleep at the zoo."
Brief Book Summary: This is a bilingual alphabet book where animals at the zoo come together once a year when the zookeepers fall asleep. The book teaches children their alphabet by using a different animal for each letter on every page. Each animal in the story does something else when the zookeepers are asleep. At the end, all of the animals come together to sing and dance before the zookeepers wake up.
Professional Recommendation/Review #1: Susie Wilde- This book marks a celebration that takes place when once a year, the singing monkey croons the keepers to sleep at the zoo and the ting-tong of the marimba wake all animals on cue. Thus begins a raucous alphabetic romp as English and Spanish languages intertwine to celebrate play where bears dance la bamba, mariachi manaties mambo, and otters and ocelots make pies. Mora, who has always shown a profound bilingual passion for words, incorporates both in a rich and satisfying rhythmic dance that embraced food, dance, and song into a fiesta that will excite any young child. She differentiates language only through italicizing Spanish words, but many are familiar in both languages and she proves they flow together. She also includes a translation, pronunciation guide at book's end, as well as an intelligent and sensitive author's note that lets you see the genius of her conception. Doug Cushman's art is bright and colorful and will of course speak to listeners of all languages.
Professional Recommendation/Review #2: Claudia Mills- In this rollicking, bilingual alphabet book, all the animals in the zoo, from burros to zebues, stage an all-night wild and wonderful party, singing and dancing (conga, tango, hula, cha-cha, and samba) to marimba's ting-tong beat. Best of all, when the warning comes that keepers are waking up to spoil the fun, the keepers themselves join in the infectious celebration. In an author's note at the end of the book, Mora describes her intention for the book as presenting twenty-six cognates, so that Spanish speakers would discover that they are already familiar with twenty-six words in English, and vice versa. On a first reading, before encountering the author's note, it is unclear why certain words are selected for italics: why burros, but not bears? Why coyotes, but not cougars? Moreover, it is doubtful that many readers would come to the book already familiar with nutrias, ocelots, quetzals, wapitis, and zebus. That quibble aside, the more animals, or animals, the merrier, and Cushman's lively art depicts them all with zest and zeal.
Response to Two Professional Reviews: Both of these reviews showed a very similar view towards this alphabet book and I agree with both of them. One difference between the two reviews were that Wilde liked that the Spanish words were in italics so it was easy to see which were the Spanish words, but Mills was confused why those words were italicized until she read the authors note. I agree with Wilde and I was able to catch on quickly and see that those were the Spanish words, and in fact this is what helped me learn some new words! Besides that, I agree with both authors that the authors note at the end was very helpful to see Mora's point of view and why she did what she did throughout the book.
Evaluation of Literary Elements: This is another book that children will love because of the characterization of the animals. Each animal is brought to life at the end of the book when they are all dancing and singing together. The tone of the book will make children laugh because they will feel mysterious as all the animals are gathering together. I also liked the style of the writing in this book because I liked that the Spanish words were italicized because it makes it easier for children especially to recognize which words are Spanish and what they mean in English.
Consideration of Instructional Application: Since this is an alphabet book I would use it in my elementary classroom when the students are learning or just practicing the alphabet. The book is colorful and funny so children would be interested in reading it and they would be practicing their alphabet at the same time. The book also gives children names of different animals that start with each letter to help them learn. I also liked how Mora was able to use both languages in the book for students to learn as well.