Rival

by Mira Canion

Tension is mounting. Despite 500 years of the Spanish Reconquista, Christian Kings have managed to recapture only two-thirds of the Iberian Peninsula from Muslims. When Muslim leader Al-Nasir starts amassing troops from Africa, Christians declare a crusade to recruit and gather military forces in Toledo. The epic 1212 Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa looms. With a call of duty and a sense of holy devotion Knight Templar Pedro Vega Garcia, whose secrets run deeper than his battle scars, is eager to meet his rivals. However, his immediate challenge just may be his 16-year-old niece Clara and her insatiable curiosity about Islamic and Arabic cultures. Belonging to the genre of language learner literature, this is an easy Spanish reader containing just 270 new vocabulary words and many English-Spanish cognates.

Genres: Spanish Literature, Read For School

88 pages, Paperback

First published June 15, 2012

Reviews

[flori rose · Rating 2 out of 5]

Leí este libro por mi clase de español. Solo me gusta porque estoy feliz que puedo leer un libro entiro en español, pero este libro es un poco aburrido.

[Summertime Readaholic · Rating 4 out of 5]

I hesitated for years to try this book out. This year however, I decided to give it try because a colleague at another school had chosen it for her level 2 classes to read together. She said they really enjoyed the story and the twist. When I talked to her about historical accuracy she said that for a book being created to engage readers, this fictional tale had enough "truth" in it to spark conversation about difference and cultures as well as enough info to pique the interests of her students about Arab culture in a positive way. So I gave it a try.

It tells the story of a girl whose Uncle is Knight Templar during the "reconquista" or Reconquest of Spain. She stows away in his caravan as he is called off to battle because she wants to see the city of Toledo. There she meets an Arab boy and becomes fascinated with him and with his culture. Without spoiling the story think of any coming of age, with warring factions, story and you will have an idea of how this tale proceeds. There is a nice twist that even I didn't predict despite being pretty good at knowing how these readers for HS kids will go.


While the novel is very repetitive for the sake of the student learner of Spanish, it is also fast paced and interesting enough to keep the kids involved. As a teacher, you can relate it to Romeo and Juliet, the movie Avatar or any other story where cultures clash but work it out or to "los amantes de Teruel" for your upper level kids in order to make connections to other cultural tales. The story is not about staying true to some of the more historically accurate (yet nowadays considered barbaric) tendencies on both sides in regard to females during that time. It is more about opening the students minds to the fact that Arab culture is a huge part of how Spain evolved over the centuries. Still today over 4,000 words in the Spanish language can be linked directly to their Arabic counterparts. Words like hasta, algebra, alcalde, and ojála to name a few common ones. Almost all words in Spanish that start with AL come from Arabic. That means that just about 8% of the language is borrowed from Arabic. Yet, today so little notice is paid to what amounts to 700 years of influence for 700AD to 1492 more or less. Providing a safe place for students to begin to look at Arab culture without all the fear-mongering and negativity of the media makes this book worth the read as a class set or at least adding a few copies to your classroom library.

History lesson aside, I found this to be a book that I will be considering as one of my final choices for a new class set next year. As a reader, your students will enjoy it. As a teacher, it has tons of topics you can branch into that are actually listed for you in the back of the text for further exploration.

Bottom line, this book was worth the read and I have ordered a few copies for my classroom library.

[Emily · Rating 1 out of 5]

I had to read this book for Spanish II, and I hated it.

[⚡️Samantha⚡️ · Rating 5 out of 5]

For those who are Spanish learners, this book is EXCELLENT! It really helped me to become accustomed to and familiar with Spanish past tense and complex sentence structure.

This book also shed light into the Spanish Reconquista and the 1212 Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa. With a cute little love story weaved into the secrecy and tensions between the Muslims and Christians, this book will not only help to develop your Spanish vocabulary, but it's also quite entertaining.

[Rooboss · Rating 4 out of 5]

this book is my peace

[Bookluvr7 · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think this was a solid historic fiction Spanish book. It is easy for beginners as well as insightful. 3/5 stars.

[victor · Rating 2 out of 5]

it just wasn't that narratively good idk + i can never forgive the moment where tarik takes out his sword twice like come on proofread

[Trevor · Rating 3 out of 5]

learned some few words. interesting blend of historical fiction and medieval adventure fantasy.

[Andrés Escudero · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fantastic comprehensible input book/graded reader for advanced-beginner (A2) students. The author has an audio version available on her website, so you can work on your reading/listening comprehension at the same time.

If you haven't done much with the past tenses yet, I would recommend brushing up on the rules and then diving into this book. It's a perfect way to learn them in context.

[Gary Paulson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty interesting story. Of course the main reason I read it was to practice my Spanish and for that it did a great job.

[Kerry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Historical fiction with a female protagonist. Good way to practice my Spanish.