Becky Chavarria-Chairez

I liked the book Magda's Pinata Magic / Magda y la Piñata Mágica. It had a good plot, where Gabriel did not want the life-size piñata to be broken at his party, so Magda came up with a solution. I liked the big idea of the story, which was to help others by coming up with compromises. I also thought it was good that the story is written both in English and Spanish. I also thought the word choice to express sound added details to the story, for example, “Beep…Beep…beep… BEEP – BEEP – BEEEEP.” I enjoyed looking at the colorful illustrations throughout the book as well.… (altro)

I liked this book because Magda displayed persistence and thoughtfulness in creating a pinata for her brother's birthday. Magda didn't want to break the "perfect pinata" her tio bought for her brother, and went out of her way to create her own pinata that could be broken. She also was consistent in building the best magical pinata for her brother.

I didn't like all of the illustrations. Some of the facial expressions of Magda were creepy, in my opinion. I noticed that her eyes were almost completely blacked out in some of the illustrations.… (altro)

I have mixed feelings about this story. There is English writing on the top half of each page and Spanish writing on the bottom half. This is a good story for English Language Learners who have already started to learn how to read in their native language. It is also good for English speaking students who are learning how to speak Spanish, since even the English part of the story has some Spanish translations. One of the big ideas of the story is not to be too hard on yourself because you are often your biggest critic. This is shown when Magda is making tortillas with her abuela, but is scared to show her family because she did not like how they turned out. The entire family loved Magda’s tortillas and called her an artist for making them so beautifully, which made Magda feel a lot better. This is a great message for children because they should be proud of the effort they put into everything they do without being too harsh on themselves. The illustrations are detailed, realistic, colorful, and add to the overall mood of the story. This book encourages children to compare their family traditions to those of children from different cultures. It helps them realize that although the details about a group of people, such as foods they eat, may be different depending on the culture, the importance of family tradition is emphasized all around the world. The book may be a little too long to keep a young elementary school student’s attention, but the target audience for the story is students in grades K-2. This could be an issue since the children who are developmentally ready to read this story on their own may get bored while reading this story since there is no real action or suspenseful moment in the book. This would be a hard book for the target audience to read independently, so I would strongly recommend using it as a read aloud book in the classroom.… (altro)

This is a great bilingual book for elementary readers because it is a story of persistence and family values. Magda expects her tortillas to be perfect like Abuela's. Her Abuela has made tortillas for many years, and it takes a lot of practice to get them as round as Abuela's. Magda learns that even though her tortillas aren't perfect, the funny shapes are recognized as different things, and eating them is fun for her family. Many things in life require a lot of practice, and often people give up on what they want to do because it seems too difficult. This story supports the idea that perfection is not important; it's the journey toward learning and improving that is most important. If Magda had given up, her family would not have enjoyed her creative tortillas. The family in this story is very close. Magda's birthday experience is a special one because she gets to learn an important skill from her Abuela (grandmother), one that has been passed down from generation to generation. It's a heart-and-tortilla-warming story.… (altro)