51. The Bossy Gallito, by Lucia M. Gonzalez

 

51. The Bossy Gallito, by Lucia M. Gonzalez


Gonzalez, L. (1994). The bossy gallito. NY: Scholastic.

This story is a traditional Cuban folktale written in both English and Spanish. It is set in Miami's Little Havana and tells the tale of a bossy rooster on his way to his parrot uncle's wedding.  He eats a kernel of corn and dirties his beak.  He must find a way to clean it before he can go to the wedding.  He begins to order things around- the grass, a goat, a stick, the fire, water.  It becomes clear that they all refuse because he never says please. Finally, he asks the sun for help and asks nicely.  The sun helps him out and it ends up the grass helps him clean his beak.

It is a good book to share with bilinguals because it has the text in both languages on each page.  It has an obvious lesson, so it would be good for introducing folktales to a young class.  I found a lesson plan for a very young class-maybe pre-k or kindergarten.  They use the story to help tell the story of what their daily activities are.

https://s3-us-east-2.amazonaws.com/wisconsinpublictv/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Bossy-Gallito.pdf

 

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