Amelia's Show-and-Tell Fiesta/Amelia y la fiesta de "muestra y cuenta"

by Mimi Chapra, Martha Avilés (Illustrations)

At her very first show-and-tell, Amelia may have made a mistake, a mistake muy grande. Seeing a basket filled with all sorts of small objects makes Amelia worry -- ay, she has brought the wrong item to share with her new classmates. The most precious thing of all from her island home may not be the right thing in her new American school.

Amelia's Show-and-Tell Fiesta is a heartwarming bilingual story for every young child who has ever been a newcomer.

Es su primer día de "muestra y cuenta" y Amelia piensa que ha cometido un error, un error muy grande. Mirando la canasta llena de objetos pequeños, Amelia se preocupa -- ay, ha traído una cosa muy extraña para mostrar a su nueva clase. Esa cosa tan preciosa de su isla querida, tal vez no sea la más apropiada en su nueva escuela americana.

amelia y la fiesta de "muestra y cuenta", un cuento bilingüe encantador, es ideal para cualquier niño que alguna vez ha sido un recién llegado.

Genres: Picture Books, Childrens, Cultural, Fiction

32 pages, Hardcover

First published May 25, 2004

Reviews

[Brittany Arcuri]

A fun book about a young Spanish girl who is new to America. She is nervous to present her show and tell items in her Spanish dress but once she starts to share, the class is very interested! Being exposed and learning about different cultures is important for children. Not everyone is the same but that is what makes us all interesting and unique!

[Kim Sanchez]

This story is about a little girl who just came to America and is at her first day of school. Amelia finds out that for the next day, they are assigned to bring in something spectacular to show to the class the next day. She talks about how excited she is to show her class her beautiful fiesta dress. To her dismay, she finds out the next day that she was supposed to bring something small to put into a basket for the class. She is very disheartened by this and feels that she does not belong, but soon enough, the class is amazed by her beautiful dress, and she realizes she will definitely enjoy her new American school. As a teacher, I will use this book to teach students that even if a new place is scary at first, just be optimistic and you will enjoy it and succeed once you put your mind to it. The students would enjoy the illustrations because they go so well with the descriptive text, and are very detailed and colorful. Both the author, Mimi Chapra, and the illustrator, Martha Aviles are Hispanic, so they are both able to relate to the culture in the text. They did a great job of tying in the story to the pictures, and it made the book much more interesting. This book can teach children that it is scary for people to move, especially to a different country, and go to a new school. However, it can be a great experience. It relates to my topic because it shows a type of difficulty that immigrants have to go through, and how they survive it.

[Hannah Rosengrant]

I really enjoyed this book. Amelia just started school in America and it is show-and-tell day. She decides to wear her favorite fiesta dress for show-and-tell. When Amelia gets to school she realizes everyone brought items from home to show. She was embarrassed of her dress, but when it was her turn to share, her whole class loved her dress. She learned that it's okay to be different and that she should be proud of her uniqueness. I enjoyed that the author wrote in both Spanish and English. This gives students a opportunity to learn new words from context clues. This would help ELL student in the classroom, to hear a story with words in their native language. I would definitely use this story in a future classroom. The story is mostly in English, but there are some Spanish words within the text. This would be a great book if I had ELL student in my class. It incorporates two languages and teaches students about cultural differences. The images were bright and colorful, the print was fairly small, but legible. Overall, I would include this book in my future classroom library. I would use this story in a upper or lower elementary classroom. It encourages diversity and allows students to see a culture that might be different or similar to their own.

[Kelly]

Amelia is new to America and enjoys participating in her school’s activities. So when show-and-tell comes up, she already knows exactly what she wants to share. She decides that she will wear her party dress that has 3 layers of different colors; rojo, amarillo and blanco. However, when she gets to school, she sees that everyone is in regular clothing. She gets very self-conscious and embarrassed when her classmate asks what she brought to put in the show-and-tell basket. She feels like she did something wrong because she did not follow her teacher’s instruction of bringing an object that can be put inside of a basket, "Now her fiesta dress doesn't seem special. Not anymore. It can't be put in a basket and passed around and touched, like the other terrific toys." When Amelia goes up to share her dress, her classmates are intrigued and they love hearing about the fiestas that she has attended with her beautiful dress. This story really touched upon the conflict people have within themselves: wanting to be unique but also wanting to fit in. The illustrations were great depictions, especially the pages that were representing her thinking.

[Audrey Arnette]

Amelia's Show-and-Tell Fiesta by Mimi Chapra and Martha Aviles was a really great book. I loved that it was in both English and Spanish. I think it is so cool to incorporate different languages in the classroom and in younger children's lives. Even if you read the book in English there are still words in Spanish that you can talk about, like the colors rojo and azul. The story itself was really fun and showcased a different culture which is always great for a book to do. I think this book is a fun and culturally rich book that many kids would benefit from reading.

[Pynteya Bate]

Wonderful story about the girl, who is new in class, misunderstands the teacher’s assignment and wears her fiesta dress to the school instead of bringing something small about your culture to put into the bucket. She is brave to tell to her class the story about her fiesta dress. I really like this book; it encourages the students to be confident and proud of who you are and where you came from. Great multicultural book for the classroom.

[Sarah Kasper]

This book is a great book to have in a classroom with English Language Learners. This book includes both English and Spanish text on the same page. I would showcase this book to my students as a read aloud, having myself read the English text and someone who speaks Spanish reading the Spanish text. After we read, the students will think about something they can bring to school for "show and tell."

[Olivia]

I enjoyed "Amelia's Show and Tell Fiesta". Amelia gets excited to wear her fiesta dress to show and tell, but when she sees what her other classmates brought she feels embarrassed and is afraid that no one would like what she brought. However, when it is her turn to share all of her classmates are fascinated by her dress. I would love to have this book in my classroom as it can teach children to appreciate your culture and that others would love to learn about your culture.

[Laree Brown]

This book is fabulous! It is a bilingual story about a young girl and her experience as a new student and show and tell. The text is written in both English and Spanish. I would read this story to my class to introduce a new student. It will also be a good book to put in the classroom library and helpful to ELL students.

[Shira Burns]

I will start off by stating this book is written in both English and Spanish, which I think is awesome! This text is about about a Cuban little girl who decides to share her fiesta dress for show and tell with her new school. In doing so her classmates find it odd that she would bring such a thing to share. This book is perfect for sharing within a classroom about differences amongst cultures.

[Kerri Harshaw]

A great first day of school or show and tell book to read with students. The book promotes being proud of your culture, family, and yourself (no matter how different these things may be from your classmates). All text is written in English and in Spanish on each page. A great multicultural book.

[E]

Amelia goes to a new school where she will have her first show and tell fiesta. This multicultural picture book would be great for teaching students about the Spanish culture and their language. This book would be great for students whose native language is Spanish and they are learning English. This book can also be used to teach Spanish to English language learners.

[Natalie Richard]

This is a lovely story about a young girl who is new to the United States and new to show-and-tell. She decides to wear her beautiful dress from Carnaval to share with her classmates. She soon realizes at school that you don't wear something, you bring something! You'll have to read it to find out what happens next!

[Sharon]

I enjoyed reading this in a classroom setting. The kids liked it and there were several discussion points to explore.

[SL]

This was a really lovely story with tender illustrations but it could've been made more explicitly clear in the text that Amelia is of Cuban descent. Amelia referred to her home as 'the island' but I'm not sure all readers will be able to catch that reference, even with the beautiful illustrations by Martha Aviles. Tbh, I also had to look to make sure because I wasn't sure where Amelia and her family were from. She mentions Carnaval, but Cuba isn't the only Latin American country that has this celebration. The text in AMELIA'S SHOW-AND-TELL/AMELIA Y LA FIESTA DE MUESTRA Y CUENTA is bilingual: the English has some Spanish sprinkled in, usually when Amelia has an exclamation or is experiencing a strong emotion; the Spanish text stays entirely in its original form. I liked that in the English text, there's some Spanish thrown in because it's demonstrating Amelia's bilingual abilities.

Quibbles aside, I really liked this story. Amelia is in a seemingly gen-ed class but the reader could also interpret it as an ELL classroom. She wants to show off her beautiful dress but has second thoughts when her other classmates bring smaller objects that can be passed around. But then Amelia's teacher kindly encourages her and Amelia, remembering why she wanted to talk about her dress and her love of Cuba, showcases her dress and is met with hoorays from her class.

[Aolund]

I loved this story of Amelia bringing in her fiesta dress to show-and-tell at her new school in the U.S. An immigrant from Cuba, Amelia worries at first that she may have made a mistake by bringing in something she's wearing rather than something that can be passed around, but then she thinks about the beauty of her dress and how it connects her to her island home, and her confidence and sense of belonging is restored. A powerful and joyful story. Told in both Español and English.

Themes: Immigration, Show and Tell, Fiesta/Carnival, School, Believe in Yourself
Age range: Preschool through early elementary

[Kambry Burns]

I like that this book celebrates differences and that the character, Amelia, portrays realistic feelings towards being culturally different. I also like that she starts as afraid and slowly becomes confident in her identity in the end.

[Abdie Estrella]

This is a nice story to practice spanish with pre-school aged children. Younger ones might be a tad bored. The illustrations are beautiful and there are plenty opportunities for learning new words. Great for children who feel a little shy during their first days of school.

[Sarah]

Amelia is embarrassed when she misunderstands the show and tell assignment, but overcomes embarrassment with the joy she feels for her unique culture.