The great, big, enormous turnip (review by Jésica Torres)

“The great, big, enormous turnip” tells the story of an old man who plants a little turnip hopping it would grow strong. But his wishing is so huge, that he will need many hands to pull it up. By this retelling, Alexei Tolstoy, leads young readers to involve themselves with the values of cooperation, teamwork and diversity.

The little turnip grows great, big and enormous being impossible for the old man to pull it up by himself. For this reason, he calls for help to the old woman. But as their strength is not enough, he goes on asking for help and joining more people and animals who accept to cooperate with the old man despite the differences they may have as regards culture, age, race and gender. In fact, it is not until they are all together hauling the turnip up at the same time and direction, that the big plant comes up.

Tolstoy’s retelling is great for young learners of the English language. Its repetitive use of the regular and a few irregular verbs in the past tense and the reiteration of lexical items that children are familiar with, make the book and effective resource; easy for children to understand and enjoy while learning collective principles in the foreign language.

Eat up, Gemma (Review by Gisela Méndez)

Gemma's family tells her that she must eat, but she doesn't like being pushed around. Instead she does what she wants: she throws her breakfast on the floor, pulls grapes off one by one, bangs her spoon on the table and gives her dinner to the dog. When Gemma,the main character in “Eat up, Gemma”, finally decides to eat, she chooses not only an unusual time and place, but also a funny presented meal. Sarah Hayes has written this story with a focus on the difficult stage for parents in which children are not willing to eat anything.

The text does not imply race, but its illustrator, Ormerod, extends Hayes’ witty prose with warm and lively drawings of a black family, sometimes frustrated but always willing to understand and care for its youngest member. The little Gemma, is a lovely character: showing in every action the lively curiosity of her age group.

The book will work as an interesting tool for parents to deal with toddlers who are determined not to eat their food.

Eat up, Gemma (review by Betina Ricchezza)

“Eat up, Gemma” is a wonderful and lovely story in which a whole family encourage baby Gemma to eat. The author, Sarah Hayes, uses simple language to describe funny situations of a family dealing with common problems of a baby. The author´s choice that Gemma´s elder brother narrates the story makes it much warmer and more sensitive.

Baby Gemma decides not to eat and when she hears her mum, dad or grandma saying “Eat up, Gemma”, she throws her breakfast on the floor or gives her dinner to the dog. All family´s attempts to encourage Gemma to eat fail. A Sunday morning at church, Gemma becomes fascinated with an unusual hat of a woman. This amusing situation gives her elder brother an intelligent idea to solve the problem.

Along the story the author manages to combine humour, worries and smartness which make “Eat up, Gemma” a great story.

Recommended for preschoolers and younger. They will reflect on it ; and even their parents !

Forum 1: The appropriate topics for children

As we read at the beginning of the year, Corbally sustains that “children’s literature is didactic (teaches/preaches); even the best of children’s literature is didactic.” So, if we agree products for children are supposed to ‘teach’, what do you think they should teach? Or, the other way round: what do you think they should not teach? What topics are proper or improper when children are the target?

Join the discussion!

The building Ant

Once upon a time there was a little ant, Red Ant, who was extremely sensitive. However, the rest of the ants were not such nice people.

Being very young, Red Ant started building a new house. Her friends laughed at her and said to her “Why are you working so hard? Let’s have fun together!” But little Red Ant never gave up her dream. She wanted the house to protect her family, her friends and future ants from the wind.

Day by day she worked so hard while the other ants ate and

laughed. Month by month, year by year she never quit. So old and tired but so inspired she saw her dream came true. In that moment an amazed an

t approached Red Ant and told her “You’ve wasted your whole life building such a big house. And now that you’ve finished it you are about to die”. “What’s wrong with that?, said little Red Ant. “It makes room for new people”. “I’ve never wanted the house to protect myself; I wanted it to protect you, and your friends”, explained Red Ant.

Little Red Ant, admiring her good job, realised that her main aim of helping others was fulfilled. Thus, she decided to take a rest, a long one.

Red Ant is now remembered in the colony because of her kindness.

Plan B: A hungry decision

Once upon a time a big colony of Red Ants was getting ready for the winter season. They had to collect food and keep it in a big store-room.

Little Red Ant was supervising the operation. He asked Big Red Head, his right hand, to go upstairs and have a look at the garden. “Sir, we’re fucked! Big Black Bottoms got ahead of us. They took all the food”, said Big Red Head. “God damn those fat asses! Time for plan B has come. Start immediately”, answered Little Red Ant.

Big Red Head was worried. He thought plan B was wrong. “But sir, are you sure? Don’t you think it’s a bit too soon?”, asked Big Red Head. “What’s wrong with that?”, said Little Red Ant, “it makes room for new people”. “To the retirement house!”, he ordered.

Little Red Marxist

Once upon a time, there was an ant nest in an old-grow forest.

Its inhabitants, the red ants, were preparing themselves to stock up with enough supplies to face the harsh winter. Disagreements arose when the supplies took up most of the space destined to spend the winter.

Little Red Ant proposed to donate the extra supplies to another ant community in order to make some place. “Are you mad? Donating the extra supplies after a whole summer work?” said Big Red Ant. “What’s wrong with that?” said L

ittle Red Ant. “It makes room for new people and at the same time we will be helping others”. The other ants considered that the last book that Little Red Ant had read, The Capital, had influenced him too much.

Eventually, his socialist views were the cause of long clashes a

mong the ants. Consequently, Little Red Ant was exiled from his community. He was accused of being ‘too red’ for such a Capitalist society.