I am a bilingual teacher. I have been teaching for more than 9 years, not always teaching bilingual students, but that is my passion.
I am in the midst of planning our school’s Read Across America event, and I realized 1) that I haven’t posted recently, and 2) that I suddenly knew what I wanted to share.
I love bilingual books. I have been inspired by authors who share their gifts by having them translated. I believe that we can learn a lot about a people by their stories. In many Latin cultures books are not the way stories are communicated. It is much more an oral tradition of storytelling, rather than committing these stories to print. So for my first author crush I need to share Joe Hayes, and my favorite book so far “The day it snowed tortillas”. It is a collection of short stories that are poignant and often, hilarious, as in the story of ” The cricket” in which a lazy, good-for-nothing convinces his best friend that he is a seer, and can find lost items. Hilarity ensues, as “the cricket” must get himself out of the mess he got himself into.
Another author of bilingual books that I adore is Alma Flor Ada. I have a copy of the children’s poetry book “Pio, Peep! Traditional Spanish Nursery Rhymes”. I believe that poetry and storytelling are windows to the Latino culture, indeed to any culture, and so I will share one of my favorite Alma Flor Ada poems to close. It’s called, appropriately “Los libros son mis amigos”
Los libros son mis amigos: Books are my friends:
nos dicen cosas hermosas. they tell us beautiful things
Lapiz, papel son mis amigos pencil, paper are friends that
con los que las cuento yo. I count my own.
Me gusta leer, I like to read,
me gusta escribir, I like to write.
me gusta cantar, I like to sing,
me gusta reir. I like to laugh.
En cada cuento In every story
lo mas hermoso the most beautiful
es ver al bueno is to see the good
salir airoso. end happily
Por eso me alegro For that reason
una y otra vez over and over again
cada vez que oigo: I am happy when I hear the words
“Habia una vez…” “Once upon a time…”
Que pasan el tiempo leyendo libros excelentes!
Lovely! I tried liking it, but wordpress was tetchy about it. How do you think translating from language to another affects or does not affect meaning in literature?
It can definitely have an impact. It is helpful to have some background into the culture, since culture and language do really go hand in hand. This is probably more true with poetry, but it bears keeping in mind.