Edel RodriguezBesprekingen

An engaging memoir of Edel Rodriguez's childhood under Fidel Castro's dictatorship in Cuba and his parents' decision to risk everything by fleeing to the United States as part of the Mariel boatlift in 1980 when he was nine years old.

The closing chapters of the book pivot to Rodriguez's editorial cartooning and activism against the increasingly autocratic Donald Trump, a man who reminds him too much of Castro with all the scapegoating, hate-mongering, and big lies.

It's a bit wordy for a graphic novel, but Rodriguez's striking art easily offsets any overlarge blocks of text.

(Best of 2023 Project: I'm reading all the graphic novels that made it onto NPR's Books We Love 2023: Favorite Comics and Graphic Novels and the Publishers Weekly 2023 Graphic Novel Critics Poll lists. This book made it onto both.)

I loved this story, the art work was a bit outdated to me but I believe that my bilingual students will enjoy reading about the first latina judge½

13

Loved learning more about one of our impactful supreme court justices. I found myself resorting to the english a bit more because I really wanted to learn more of the details instead of focusing on the language. But I think this book could lead into great discussion about more of our country's leaders and government systems at a basic level. I also thought the author made it very understandable and connectable for many young students.

This is a cute book about facing your fears. Good book to read to younger kids but the illustrations are very minimalistic so there isn't much for them to look at.

With its themes of love, family, persistence and victorious, this biography picture book is an inspiring and diverse read for kids age 7-12. It is about a little girl who after the struggle, later becomes a judge. I believe this book would be interesting to the children because many of them dream of being a doctor, lawyer, police, judge, etc. The book presents the main character as a little girl growing up in the Bronx and everyone knows children come with many strengths and faults. Her family faced hardships that many faces today; therefore, many children will be able to relate. Another hardship that some children would be able to relate to is how she found out she was a diabetic. These two adversities helped highlight how strong she was even as a kid because it did not stop her from dreaming big and pursuing those dreams. I think this book is a great book that is appropriate for the audience in which it was intended. It gave an in-depth look in the life of Judge Sotomayor. And, I can imagine me using this book during my lesson activity for and standard of retelling a story and the sequencing.

This book is a great biography of Sonia Sotomayer. It goes back from her childhood, adjusting to college, and her professional life as a judge. The book sets a great example for kids about a personal struggle can be overcome with hard work and determination. This story also gives some vocabulary and understanding of the US government. Rated 4 out of 5 stars.

This picture book is helpful to students when they are looking for information on the biography of Sonia Sotomayor. It allows students to know more about her and also see that she struggled throughout her journey as she grew up in South Bronx. I like this book because it is bilingual meaning that it is also a resource for ELLs.

This book is about Sonia Sotomayor and how she grew up in the Bronx where her family was poor. She worked hard in school even when she found out she had diabetes at the age of 8 and her father passing away at 9. She was accepted into Princeton University to study law and become the first Latina Judge on the supreme court. This book is a great one to show students that anything is possible through hard work and dedication as well as introduce the topic of biographies.

Sonia Sotomayor A Judge Grows in the Bronx by Jonah Winter- In my opinion this is a fantastic book to teach children an array of messages, such as, perseverance, determination, hard work, etc. This nonfiction book told the story of persistent hispanic woman Sonia Sotomayor and her quest to becoming the first latina judge and Supreme Court Justice. I enjoyed that the book is in spanish and english, and that it gave an insight to puerto rican culture, such as talking about her favorite traditional foods, like rice and beans, or merengue music, and even describing games like loteria. I loved the illustrations and the fact that the story was a biography told from a different point of view.

I read Sonia Sotomayor's autobiography called My Beloved World. Her story is very interesting and could be inspiring for children. I found out a young readers edition, but it isn't coming out until this fall. Then I found this children's picture book version, so I want to recommend this one. The text is in both Spanish and English. It tells her story from childhood all the way to becoming a Supreme Court Justice. Her family originally came from Puerto Rico. She grew up poor, and her father died when she was nine. At the age of eight, she found out she had diabetes. That changed her life. She worked hard in school and ended up being accepted into Princeton University where she studied law. Then she decided to become a judge. This story highlights the struggles and prejudice she faced as a minority and as a woman in a man's field. Children can relate to each experience describes in her life. It is illustrated by Edel Rodriguez. She uses sketches colored in with watercolors in soft tones to depict the scenes from Sonia's life.

Each double-page spread of this book has text both in English and in Spanish. The book tells the story of our first Latin-American Supreme Court justice from the time she was a little girl.

As we learn in an Author’s Note at the end of the book (also both in English and in Spanish), Sonia Maria Sotomayor was born on June 25, 1954 to Puerto Rican parents in the South Bronx section of New York City.

When young, Sonia loved Nancy Drew mysteries, but because she got diabetes when she was eight, she figured she could not be a detective herself, but maybe she could be a judge, just like in her favorite television show, “Perry Mason.”

She studied hard, and got into Princeton. There she graduated with the highest honors of her class. Oddly, the author then skips the fact that Sonia went on to law school. (She received her J.D. from Yale Law School in 1979, where she was an editor at the Yale Law Journal.) Instead, the story takes us immediately from Princeton to her career as a judge.

The author reports that Sonia was a special judge because of her first-hand understanding of poverty and prejudice. Then, the next thing you know in the book, President Obama is inviting her to the White House and nominating her to the Supreme Court. She faced days of tough questions from senators, but she made it:

“Nothing could stop Sonia, the dynamo from the Bronx, from making history as the nation’s first Latin-American Supreme Court justice. . . . "

Cuban-born illustrator Edel Rodriguez uses mixed-media illustrations with ink and watercolors in a soft palette. Readers may be more familiar with Rodriguez than they think; he was the artist responsible for the iconic cover of Der Speigel magazine on February 4, 2017.

Evaluation: Most of the prose is fairly trite, and as noted above, leaves some odd gaps in Sotomayor’s story. While there is some additional information about Sotomayor’s career in an Author’s Note at the end of the book, it too is incomplete, and pretty much omits why her legal career garnered national attention. Still, it may inspire kids to try to find out more on their own.½

SO CUTE!

Social Sciences, BI, Sotomayor, Supreme Court, American History, Latino American, Latino, Latina, Hispanic, Judicial System

This is the tale of Sonia Sotomayor. It starts out with young Sonia and living with her mother and sibling, after her father died. Her mother worked hard to keep them in school and get them educated. Sonia attended college and decided to go into law. She stood up against discrimination of those less privileged. The book details events that led up to her being asked to become a Supreme Court Justice by Obama.

This book was truly inspirational. It was about a young Latina girl who was being raised in the Bronx New York. Her family was extremely poor and her father died when she was nine years old. Sonia was raised by her mother who worked hard day and night for her children to succeed. The mother was in school studying to be a nurse after not getting past the third grade. She worked days and nights to pay for her children's private school. Sonia had first dreamed about being like Nancy Drew, but after being diagnosed with diabetes, she decided she would become a judge. Against all odds Sonia went to Princeton University and eventually became a supreme court justice. This story is inspiring to not only the Latina culture, but also to anybody with a dream. I would highly recommend this book to others and I plan to read it to my class one day.

This book was very well written and put together written as story-like biography for children. I especially liked how the author incorporated two languages into this book side by side. For every paragraph of English, next to it was another paragraph of the same text but in Spanish. Sometimes, in the English portion of the paragraphs, the author included words in Spanish, such as ‘abuela’ and ‘loteria’ to introduce different parts of Sonya’s culture. This definitely highlights the fact that Sonya encompasses two parts within herself: one that is Puerto Rican, and the other, American. With the Spanish text, I think it’ll be helpful for readers to translate and match the words to English and get a better sense of the Spanish language itself. I also enjoyed the structure of how the illustrator organized the text around the pictures. Most books have the text above or below the picture, but this illustrator would put it around the drawings to accommodate for all the Spanish translations. It’s organized in a circular kind of way with the words in one corner, a picture to its right and bottom, and more text in between the pictures. This engages readers to observe and look at the sequence of the text that correspond to the text. Lastly, I admire how the character had developed throughout the story. The main character, Sonya, sets goals for herself when she was a child to become a judge after she was diagnosed with diabetes. Throughout the book, she faces obstacles that would have been factors to deter her away from pursuing her dreams. However, Sonya displayed a characteristic of triumph and determination to become the first Latin Supreme Court judge. The main idea of this book is to stay true to yourself and to your dreams; the beginning of the book opens with “You never know what can happen”, and in Sonya’s story, a little girl growing up in the projects of rural Puerto Rico could one day become one of the most influential judges of our times today. It is such an encouragement and eye opener to readers, and I would highly recommend this story to be part of the classroom collection.

Sergio dreams about being a star soccer player but he's not very good at it. With the help of his teammates, coach and lots of practicing, Sergio becomes a good player. Once they play off against the opposing team, The Seagulls, Sergio blocks the last kick and wins the game.

Meet Sergio, a curious-but-cautious Argentine penguin with a passion for soccer, fishies, and water. Most water anyway: He does not know how to swim and is reluctant to follow his mates into the ocean deep. Adorably donning various floaties, Sergio psyches himself into taking the plunge, only to discover that ocean swimming is FUN.

Sergio's story unfolds with gentle economy: the spare text is integrated in the illustrations, woodcuts in a gorgeous four-color palette. The overall effect is irresistible.

Plenty of opportunities for audience interaction: name the things Sergio loves most, the kinds of water he enjoys... shout encouragement for him to dive in... "Did you have fun?" his teacher asks. (Did Sergio have fun?) "YES!"

This book provides a fantastic opportunity for children to hear the story of a girl from the Bronx who makes the most of very little growing up. From the streets to a seat in the highest court in our country, Sonia Sotomayor made all of her dreams come true with the love of her mother a determination!

SERGIO SAVES THE GAME by Edel Rodriguez is an inspiring story to help kids understand they have to keep working to get good at something. This story is about a penguin that loves the sport of soccer. He loves it so much but there is one problem, he is not good at any position. He talks to his mom about it and she helps him realize that he should practice being a goalie. He practices and practices and discovers the more he practices the better he becomes. Once the game is tied the team sends out their biggest player to try and get a goal but with all the practice he has been doing, he ends up stopping the ball from going in. This would be a good story for teachers to read to their students because it shows that with hard work and practice people can become better at what they are doing. They can apply this in many ways such as learning to write words. With more practice it will become easier to do. The illustrations of book are bright and colorful which captures the readers attention.

Sergio Makes A Splash by Edel Rodriguez is a book about a penguin named Sergio who goes on a field trip to go swimming, but does not know how to swim and is therefore scared to get in the water. After some encouragement from his friends and teacher, Sergio gets in the water with his floaties and ends up loving it. This book would be good for readers in first grade and up. It has a message of facing your fears, especially because you might end up liking something new. I would probably not use this book in a lesson; this is more of the kind of book that I would simply like to have in my classroom. Though it does have a good message about facing fears, I think there are definitely better options compared to this book. I think kids would enjoy reading this book on their own because there area a lot of easy words or words that are easy to sound out. Kids would also enjoy it because many of them could probably easily relate to this book. A fear of swimming is not uncommon, especially at the age that the reader would most likely be. The illustrations are all done in blue, white, black, and yellow.

Sregio Saves the Game by Edel Rodriquez is a classic tale of sticking with what you love. Sergio, a penguin has a love for soccer, unfortunately he is not a very good player and feels sad because of it. He later is given advice from his mom to play as the goalie and once given the chance, he proves to his team that he is a valuable and good player and eventually helps his team win the championship. This story can easily be used to talk about never giving up and and to always keep trying. The illustrations are simplistic and all done in black, white, yellow, red, and blue.

Sergio loves to play soccer with his entire penguin friends, but the only problem is he really is not that great at playing in the field. He is always tripping and getting in the way of his teammates when playing the game. Sergio’s teammates tell him that he really shouldn’t play soccer anymore because of the way he played. He goes home and tells his mom that he is always tripping on his own two feet. After hearing Sergio say this, his mother thought he should really start up playing Ping-Pong, but he does not want to play Ping-Pong. She asks him after he says he does not want to t to play Ping-Pong, why don’t you go back to soccer and try out for goalie. Sergio thinks that is a great idea, and practices and practices as the new goalie for his team. The team has an important championship game a match up between, the Seagulls, the Penguin’s biggest rivals. The game comes down to a penalty kick, and Sergio saves the ball with his beak, and the penguins win the championship game all thanks to Sergio, having never giving upon the game of soccer.

I really like the biography of Sonia Sotomayor for two reasons. First of all, it has the text in both English and Spanish, which is wonderful both for people who speak both languages, or for those who would just like to see the other language. I actually compared several of the sentences and made the connections between the languages, which was really neat. I also appreciate that this is a great multicultural book, as it describes a young Latina girl who beat the odds and became a judge on the Supreme Court, where most of the other faces were white and male. Additionally, I thought it was really cool to see President Barack Obama portrayed in this book! I think the overall message is that it does not matter where you come from or what your background is; the American Dream is for everyone and anyone. Whatever your dream is, hard work can get you there!