I Love Saturdays y domingos by Alma Flor Ada, illustrated by Elivia Savadier- Multicultural and International Literature

This book is an example of multicultural or international literature. It is about a little girl who spends the weekends visiting her grandparents. Her grandparent’s on her father’s side of the family speak English, and her grandparents on her mother’s side of the family speak Spanish. The book has alternating pages that go back and forth between her experiences with each set of grandparents. When describing her Hispanic grandparents, some of the words are written in Spanish. Even though they come from different backgrounds, both sets of grandparents are very similar and plan the same activities for their granddaughter, such as cooking breakfast, playing with pets, counting things, learning about the circus, looking at fish, etc. At the end, the girl’s whole family gets together to plan a special birthday surprise for the little girl. The Hispanic culture is represented by the words written in Spanish and by some of the activities described, such as playing with piñatas and singing “Las mañanitas,” a popular Spanish song, on her birthday.
This book would be great for any classroom to teach children about the Spanish culture and also to show children that people from different backgrounds are alike and enjoy similar activities! Children can also connect to the book if they have ever spent a weekend with their grandparents. The book is especially great for classes that have Spanish-speaking students. I read this book to a second grade class last semester, and the whole class loved it. The Spanish-speaking children seemed very excited to be hearing a book with some Spanish words! They even sang the song, “Las mañanitas” for me, because I did not know the tune. I think that 3rd-5th graders would love this book as well, especially readers who are a bit behind grade level or students who are still learning English. The pages basically say the same thing in English and then again in a combination of English and Spanish, so this could help them learn the language by seeing direct translations and connections!