This bilingual book allows young readers to enter Celia Cruz's life as she becomes a well-known singer in her homeland of Cuba, then moves to New York City and Miami where she and others create a new type of music called salsa.Customer Review: Queen of Salsa
Celia Cruz is brought to life for young children in this colorful book. Like the tropics from which she came, the book is full of vibrant illustrations. The story is put into simple terms for young readers or a teacher or parent to read. Since the illustrations are so vibrant and bold children will be enthralled by the unique features of the art work. Each biographical page is bilingual for reading in Spanish or English or both. The book describes her early family life in Cuba, her departure after the revolution, her musical group Sonora Mantacera, meeting her musician husband,her associations with other salsa greats like Tito Puente and Willie Colon, her relocation to Miami and the various honors and recognitions she achieved. This is a great little book for primary and middle school libraries as well as community libraries. Students whoose first language is Spanish can benefit from the bilingual book through middle school years. This is a fun book.
Customer Review: Wonderful!
My Name is Celia: The Life of Celia Cruz is written by Monica Brown and illustrated by Rafael Lopez. The book is the recipient of a Pura Belpre' Illustrator Honor Award for outstanding work that portrays, affirms and celebrates the Latino cultural experience in an outstanding work of literature for children and youth. The exciting and inspirational life of beloved Cuban-born salsa queen, Celia Cruz, is celebrated in the bilingual book My Name is Celia Me Llamo Celia: The Life of Celia Cruz. Celia was born in Havana to a large family where their lives were intertwined and music was an important part of everyday life. Celia's papa wanted her to become a teacher but music filled her soul with happiness. She was encouraged by a teacher to "go out into the world and sing...." Celia experienced prejudice and fled her beloved country Cuba when the revolution began. From Cuba, Celia traveled the world sharing her love of music with the world. Rafael Lopez' illustrations are vibrant, fluid combinations of color that beg to be studied. The scenes fill the page and stir emotions as you read the story and live it through his drawings. Armchair Interviews says: My Name is Celia: The Life of Celia Cruz is a beautiful and educational addition to any child's library. We highly recommend it.
Everyone is a a Star at a High School Musical Dance Party! With the 3rd installment of the HSM series coming late in summer 2008 this event is sure to be a huge hit! Invitations: Purchase the matching theme invitations or make your own tickets or backstage passes by visiting says-it.com and choosing the template for "concert tickets." Its totally free and super easy! Fill out what you want the ticket or pass to say, download, save and then print out as many copies as you need. Simple! I created a pretend invite on the right hand side so you can see what they look like.
There are several shapes, colours and designs to choose from. Use phrases like "Backstage Access'',"VIP Only" and "Admit One." The tickets would look great on card stock and the passes would look great on regular paper, laminated and hole punched with a lanyard or string attached. The kids can wear them to the party! Decorations: Create a scene right out of a High School Dance. Use plenty of red & white balloons and streamers. Try to get yourself a disco ball and some strobe lights to really set the mood for dancing! Using the name of each and every guest, make large yellow or foil stars with their name written in it. Take those stars and make a wall of fame by mixing the "guest stars" in with pictures and posters of the actors and actresses from the High School Musical movies. Hang stars, Cd's, records, pom poms, garland and pennants from the ceiling with fishing wire. Don't forget to pull out your Christmas lights and hang them all over your walls. Wouldn't it be amazing to have a DJ - O.k, that's a bit much but make sure you have good stereo on hand with a huge selection of HSM music and popular top 40 cd's. Activities: A dance lesson would be great.
Call you local Dance Studio and see if they have a student that would be willing to come the party and teach a short routine from the movie. Games: "Name That Tune" - Play short clips from the soundtrack and popular top 40 songs. Have the guest try to name the tune and if they can, they get 1 token. If they can sing the next line they will win an additional token. I will explain the tokens in a bit so stay with me. "Who said It" - Before the party, write down several lines from the movie and the character that said it. On separate slips of paper, write 1 line only (not who said it) and place in a hat or basket. Take turns by passing the hat around and having each guest choose a piece of paper and reading the quote out loud. They then have a chance to guess. If they are correct they win a token. "Hoop Toss" - The HSM kids love their East High Wildcats Basketball Team so be sure to add a b-ball activity. Why not set up a hoop toss. You can use an indoor ball and net or make your own with a wastebasket and any ball you have on hand. Every player gets 10 shots and 1 token is awarded for every basket made. The kids will really want to know what these tokens are for by now! To start the dancing portion, play a few rounds of dance freeze and have some spot dances. "Dance Freeze" is when you abruptly stop the music and the dancers must immediately freeze in whatever posoitiion they are in. If they can hold their position they are awarded 1 token. "Spot" dances is simply when you choose a certain spot in the room and whoever is closest to that spot at the end of the song wins - 1 token. Make sure you keep a running list of all the tokens awarded.
Start off each child with 10 tokens and add on from there. The Menu: A cafeteria line of course! Borrow some plastic trays from your local fast food joint and let the kids line up single file and choose their meal. Have individual servings of hamburgers & hot dogs wrapped in foil, mini pizzas, fries in baskets, salads in cups and a selection of sodas, juice boxes and milks in those small containers. Make a "Cafeteria" sign and provide the lunch lady with a hairnet! Finally we get to the tokens! Switch out the "Cafeteria" sign for an "HSM Concession Stand" sign. During the last half hour of the party set up your concession stand. The Concession stand should consist of items that you would put in their loot bags like bags of chips, candies, chocolate bars, pop, cookies & gum, tattoos, glow sticks, hackey sacks, microphones, key chains, pencils, erasers, costume jewelry and licensed HSM favors. The key is to have a wide assortment of different items as all kids will not choose the same things. In this situation it would be safer to over buy and then return items if you do not use them. Give each child their allotted tokens and a paper lunch bag or a licensed HSM loot bag to fill.
The tokens can be bingo markers, play coins, paper tickets, pennies or buttons for that matter! Have a token board with the items listed for sale and their cost in tokens for the kids to see. The more costly the item, the more tokens they cost. For example, an eraser is 1 token, a pack of bubblegum is 2 tokens and a microphone is 3 tokens. To be fair, have them line up by the amount of the tokens they won - for example the lowest to highest. Have each child in turn buy 1 item and then return to the back of the line. Keep going until all the tokens have run out. This takes a bit of planning but provides a very exciting element to the party! The kids take home things they actually want and will use - not just forget about and throw away!
http://www.partydepot.ca - purchase party supplies in Canada
http://www.partycanada.blogspot.com - more great party planning ideas!
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