The Moon is La Luna

The Moon is La Luna Written by: Jay M. Harris Illustrated by: Matthew Cordell
Ever wanted to learn another language but not go through all the hassle of memorizing! If the answer is yes, then this clever rhyming book is for you. This book is a huge rhyme that teaches you words in Spanish all the while keeping up with the theme that a lot of words in English are similar to those in Spanish. It goes through people’s lives and shows how things can get mixed up if you use the English word instead of Spanish in everyday life. The book uses many characters from old to young, boy to girl, and doctor to grandma showing how all of them use Spanish words and how they differ from English. For instance, someone may ask for a pie in Spanish which actually means feet or at the end when someone says “see ya” and really means chair!
This large rhyming poem is very funny and will have children giggling the whole way through. The books best feature after its style of course, is its format. The book has a little poem on each of its 26 medium sized pages. Each poem contains a subject and it is corresponding rhyming of one word in English and how it is pronounced in Spanish. Along with the poem are ½ page pictures oddly placed and depicting something funny. The pictures are just enough to give the idea or joke of what is being said and are not too detailed so that the child can focus on the meaning of the Spanish word. Not necessarily a weakness, but a problem to this book is that the children have to be of an older crowd to understand some of the jokes because they have to follow along with English and Spanish words. I don’t know a bit of Spanish but when I read it I found some poems to be somewhat easy and therefore funny but in some of them I had to read it a couple times to get it. A teacher could defiantly use this book to help students learn new word in Spanish in the language unit. They can then practice their words in a skit together; maybe groups can be formed and re-enact a poem from each page.