Robert Baden

Summary: This book teaches young children or anybody how to pray. It not only teaches them how to pray, it explains what each sentence is trying to say throughout the whole book. At the very end it ends with the Lords prayer, which made it a very powerful ending to me.

Personal Reaction: This book is so great in so many ways, I read this to a Sunday school class and they were absolutely intrigued by it and had so many questions for me.

Classroom Extension Ideas:
1. I could do a Lords Prayer craft bracelet, the color blue would symbolize holiness, Purple: a majestic color, Green: the color of the earth, Yellow: reminds us of wheat, Red: reminds us of Jesus' blood shed, Orange: is the color for darkness of evil and temptation, Gold: reminds us of God's Heavenly Kingdom.
2. Making a prayer hands book by tracing and cutting out their hands and writing on them I pray with quotes from the Lords Prayer.
3.Making a fill in the blank sheet of the Lords Prayer.… (meer)

Two cousins find that they have very different experiences at the home of twelve witches in this entertaining Costa Rican folktale. Carlos, poor but kind, is the first to encounter the witches, while lost in the forest one night. Coming upon their house, he overhears them shrieking the same line over and over again: "Lunes y martes y miércoles -- ¡tres!" (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, three!) and - terrified, but almost hypnotized as well - he responds with: "Jueves y viernes y sábado -- ¡seis!" (Thursday, Friday, Saturday - six!). Contrary to his expectations, the witches are thrilled at his addition to their song, and reward him by removing the huge mole on his nose, and giving him many bags of gold. But when Ricardo, his wealthy but miserly relative, forces Carlos to bring him to the witches' house, in hopes of the same reward, things don't go quite as expected...

Although Michelle Edwards' folk-style illustrations are a little too flat for my taste - rather cartoonish, but not in a good way - Robert Baden's narrative is engaging enough that And Sunday Makes Seven is still an appealing little book. I think it would be fun to read aloud with children, particularly the rhyming day-song, which will teach young listeners the Spanish words for the days of the week. Particularly observant readers will notice that mention of Sunday (Y domingo -- ¡siete!) is repugnant to the witches, and wonder about the probable religious significance of that fact. All in all, an appealing folktale retelling - one of the first I have seen of a Costa Rican tale!… (meer)