Mason Moves Away/Mason Se Muda
Amy Crane Johnson
(Reviewer - Rebecca Brown)
2003 Raven Tree Press
ISBN: 0972019235

When Mason Beaver's home breaks apart, he must build a new one in a safer place.

Sunlight streamed through the north woods.
All the forest friends were working and having fun in the warm summer sun.
Mason was especially busy building a new beaver lodge.

La luz del sol se filtrava entre los bosues del norte.
Todos los amigos del bosque trabajaban y se divertían bajo el tibio sol del verano.
Mason estaba muy ocupado, construyendo una nueva madriguera para castores.

Solomon, the wisest of birds & Mason's friend, asks him why he's building a new home. All Mason knows is that overnight his old one was damaged. As any good friend might, Solomon takes wing & flies off to see if anyone else in the woods knows how it happened, & we follow as he visits friend after friend until, while talking with Squirrel Pearl, they hear a great rumbling over the hill.

What will Solomon find in the next valley? How will it affect all the friends?

Great illustrations by Robb Mommaerts -- they are energetic, colorful & mesmerizing.

My Spanish cannot hold up to writing a review of a bilingual book, suffice to say that the moment I began reading the second paragraph, the part of the story in Spanish, I could easily pick out the meaning of the words. Now I'm an old senora in her dotage, however, I shared this book with a couple of young ones when they visited, & they were thrilled! Suddenly they saw a way to speak with some of their classmates whose mothers' tongue is Spanish.

Spanish is probably America's second most spoken language, & if you want to give your young readers (& yourself!) an introduction to this lovely language then Raven Tree Press books are a great boon for you. Of course, it works in reverse too -- if you want your children to make the connections between Spanish & English!

A word about Raven Tree Press out of Green Bay, Wisconsin -- it is an independent publisher dedicated to offering amusing, informative & interestingly written stories for the Accelerated Reader in a Bilingual Context. Each of their titles is magically illustrated to accompany the English & Spanish texts with a Glossary in the back. Raven Tree Press also has fine Translators who capture modern idioms.
(01/25/04)

Rebecca