I Love Saturdays y domingos

Ada, Alma Flor. I Love Saturdays y domingos. New York, New York: Schuster Children’s Publishing Division, 2002.

In I Love Saturdays y domingos, a young girl explains the differences and similarities between her time spent with her English-speaking grandparents, and her Spanish-speaking grandparents. On Saturdays, she spends time with her English-speaking grandparents and engages in activities such as watching movies about the circus, is told stories by her grandfather, and makes breakfast with her grandmother. On Sundays, she spends time with her Spanish-speaking grandparents. They take her to the seashore, fly kites, and play with their animals.

In this book, many Spanish words are integrated into the text when she was with her Spanish-speaking grandparents. The pages alternate between her activities with each set of grandparents, the American ones on the right, Spanish on the left. Each time she does an activity with one set of grandparents, she engages in a similar activity with the others on, so the words that are in Spanish were already spoken in English on the opposite page. This allows the reader to pick up on specific words and phrases, should they be interested.

The young girl in the story portrays to the reader that immersing themselves into two or more cultures is a fun way to experience life in two rather different ways. By spending time with each set of grandparents, she was able to educate herself on her family’s culture and heritage. She found that her grandparents had come from two very different backgrounds, and she was proud to be actively part of them, speaking two languages and taking part in traditions that both cultures had to offer.