Cultural Authenticity

​

    When comparing Stella Diaz Never Gives Up and Dear Primo: A Letter to My Cousin it becomes clear that these two texts are culturally authentic. Both stories feature a main character from Mexico. While reading these stories the authors provide the reader with a glimpse of what it is like in Mexico. In Dear Primo: A Letter to My Cousin two cousins, Charlie and Carlitos, write letters back and forth to each other. Charlie lives in in a US city and Carlitos lives in Mexico. The two cousins write letters to each other about various things, such as  what school is like, what they like to do after homework, and what it is like where they live (city, rural, etc.). Tonatiuh utilizes Spanish vocabulary throughout this text with picture support to allow non-native speakers to understand what the word means. At the end of the book he has also included a glossary of the Spanish vocabulary used in the text that tells the reader how to pronounce the word as well as the translation to English. Similarly, Dominguez utilizes Spanish vocabulary throughout Stella Diaz Never Gives Up as well. Dominguez does an excellent job placing the vocabulary in places where there are context clues to help make meaning of the words. She also selected words that were fairly simple to pronounce in Spanish, making it very very accessible to non-native Spanish speakers. 

​

    Additionally, We Are Water Protectors provides the reader with a culturally authentic reading experience. In this story water is considered to be sacred, as it is in many different parts of the world. Some students might be from a place where water is extremely sacred, allowing them to make a connection with the main character of this book because they know the importance of taking care of their land. The author, Carole Linstrom, and illustrator, Michaela Goade, both used their tribal backgrounds to depict culturally authentic representations throughout this book. Goade does a superb job drawing culturally accurate representations of clothing, animals, and people in this story. The attention to detail on the clothing is phenomenal- it looks very similar to something that people in the Ojibwe culture would wear. Students will enjoy learning a little about the Ojibwe culture as well as about the importance of protecting Mother Earth after reading this book. 

 

Environmental Justice

​

    When comparing We Are Water Protectors and Stella Diaz Never Gives Up it becomes evident that they share a common theme- environmental justice and activism. Both books place an emphasis on protecting bodies of water and the animals that live and depend on them. Stella and the young girl in We Are Water Protectors both come to similar conclusions when trying to figure out how to help protect these bodies of water. They both realize that they need the help of others in their community to help make a difference. An underlying message that is portrayed in both of these books is that a group of people is more powerful than one person. Stella and the young girl had to work with groups of people to protect the bodies of water. We Are Water Protectors is a great book to start having conversations with students about environmental justice, but Stella Diaz Never Gives Up is a great next step for talking to students about what they can do to make a difference. One thing that I really enjoyed about Stella Diaz Never Gives Up is that the author, Angela Domminguez, sends children reading her novel the message that no matter where you live you can still do your part to help save the ocean. I think that this message is super powerful because children often do not understand that they are the change for the next generation. It also helps students understand that they can still make a difference, even if it is from a distance. Lastly, I loved how Dominguez incorporates Stella creating a petition to reduce the use of plastic- just like many people do when they are trying to make a difference. I think that many students that will read this book will have heard of a petition before, but might not know what it really is. The author does a great job explaining it in kid-friendly language to help students understand that a petition is one way to make a difference. 

 

Lesson Idea

 

 Dear Primo: A Letter to My Cousin would serve as good mentor text for letter writing. Although it is a bilingual book I think that it extends the invitation to students who may speak multiple languages to include some words from their native language into their writing. If I were to use this book to teach letter writing, I would use it in conjunction with I Wanna Iguana by Karen Orloff. I think that by using both of these books as mentor texts it would provide students with a lot of inspiration for what they might include in their letters as far as text features and ideas to write about.