Book Description
for Calavera Abecedario by Jeanette Winter
From Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC)
As the Day of the Dead approaches, Don Pedro and his children prepare by making the Calaveras, or, skeletons, that are an important symbol during this Mexican holiday. They use papier-mâché and bamboo to form the figures, and they decorate them with paint. Then everyone comes to celebrate! Jeanette Winter uses the artistic endeavors of Don Pedro’s creative family to frame 26 pages of dancing Calaveras, one for each letter in the alphabet. Each is labeled with a corresponding Spanish word. In her note at the end, Winter explains the variations in the Spanish alphabet and provides translations for the Spanish words. Some of her choices are obvious, such as Angel for A and Unicornio for U, but others will require a little thinking based on the picture. Two Calaveras wearing crowns and dancing together are Rey and Reina, and a young word detective might be able to guess that it means King and Queen. (Ages 4–10, older for Spanish learners)
CCBC Choices 2005 . © Cooperative Children's Book Center, Univ. of Wisconsin - Madison, 2005. Used with permission.