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A Gift From Abuela

   Summary of Book: A Gift From Abuela was written and illustrated by Cecilia Ruiz. This story follows the relationship between Abuela and Nina who live in Mexico. These two have a very special bond and they love to spend time together, but their favorite thing to do is sit on the park bench, eat pan dulce and watch the people go by. Abuela decides that she wants to start to save up some money each week so that she can take Nina and do an adventure together, so as time goes on she saves money. However, times in Mexico get harder and Abuela has to start working more and has less money and less time to spend with Nina. And Nina also gets more busy with her own life. One day, Nina realizes she hasn't visited her Abuela in a while, so she goes to her house and finds it dirty and dusty so she starts to clean it. While she's cleaning, she finds the money that Abuela has been saving. Unfortunately, when the government had changed their money style, Abuela had not exchanged her old money, so now she is not able to use the money she saved. When Abuela comes home and realizes this, she is sad to learn this, but Nina says that it is okay and they can make a Papel Picado banner out of the money together instead. So they do and have a wonderful time, and then they go to the park and sit on the bench and eat pan dolce because it is still their favorite thing to do. 

Why you would/would not use this book in your classroom? I would use this book in my classroom because I really liked the theme of the story. It was cute and simple. The main thing that mattered was that Abuela and Nina spent time together. 


Appropriate age group for this book: 4-8

Ideas for unit of study to include this book or how you might use this book in the classroom: A unit idea that I would incorporate this book into would be a multi culture unit where each day we read a book about a different culture and this would be one I would use about the Hispanic culture. A way to use this book as we read is to practice Spanish words and incorporate that language in a unique and fun way. An activity we could have and incorporate into the classroom would be to make our own Papel Picado like in the story. 

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