I Love Saturdays y Domingos

    The book I Love Saturdays y Domingos is written by Alma Flor Ada and illustrated by Elivia Savadier.  It is written for 2nd-4th grade students and I would rate this book 3.5 out of 5 stars. 
    Each page of this book illustrates and juxtaposes a young girl’s experiences at her grandparents’ houses.  One set of her grandparents are Caucasian and the other set are Hispanic.  She shows each thing she does with her grandparents and how they are so similar, yet the language is what is different.  Instead of speaking to her completely in English, her Hispanic grandparents mix Spanish into their conversations with her.  Her grandparents both like to show her new things, tell stories, and share their family experiences.  The book italicizes the Spanish words to add distinction to them. 

   This book is a great way for teachers to show the differences and similarities between cultures.  Although the grandparents come from different ethnic backgrounds, they have similar life experiences and actions.  Also, since the main character is a little girl who is half Caucasian and half Hispanic, this book displays a pretty common occurrence of ethnically mixed people.  It is hard for students to not know of someone who is mixed since this country is made up of so many various ethnic groups. 

In the classroom, this book could be used to help students find aspects of their own lives that can be described as diverse.  Students could represent different groups through aspects of their lives such as socioeconomic status, gender, age, ethnicity, religion, region, or other factors.  If students find ways that they fit “in the box” as well as ways they stay “outside the box”, they can appreciate diversity more.  Students will struggle to connect with the idea of diversity if they think it is simply a foreign, far away idea that doesn’t have any precedence in their lives.  Students will also find ways in which their friends and classmates bring diversity to the classroom.  They can appreciate the many different aspects of culture that are represented in a classroom, even if all the students may look like they all come from the same subgroups in society. 

Here is a great lesson plan to deepen the connection to this book that you can use in your classroom.