Despite this, Rosario delivers a moving tale that is hard to put down and leaves the reader waiting for more. For example, Mercedes’s daughter Amalfi receives only a brief mention in the narrative. However, the novel suffers from hurried and incomplete portraits of Graciela’s descendants. Rosario does a superb job of portraying the desperation of the Dominican Republic at the hand of the “yanguis” and brings the imagery of Caribbean life alive in her writing. Fifty years later when Mercedes’ own journey leads her from the rural poverty of the Dominican Republic to the urban poverty of New York City, Graciela’s spirit is reborn in Mercedes’ granddaughter, Leila. Mercedes, left largely to her own devices, grows to be resourceful and self-reliant.

Graciela is not content with Casimiro’s prescription her quixotic search includes journeys to brothels and convents, and ultimately results in her death. Graciela’s dream of a turquoise palmwood house leads her to Casimiro, a patient charmer who tries to quell her restlessness by taking her on a boat ride to “Puerto Rico”–a voyage that turns out to be village a few miles down the river. Following the death of her lover, she is left with her infant daughter Mercedes and little else. Impoverished, restless, and passionate, Graciela yearns for a life beyond her small island. Units on pond habitats or for teaching poetry.Set against the backdrop of the United States’ occupation of the Dominican Republic in the early 1900s, Nelly Rosario’s debut novel paints a colorful, seductive, and often heartbreaking portrait of one young woman and her descendants. Make for interesting, engaging learning experience about pond Illustration, a paragraph of scientific information relating to theĪnimals and plants referenced or described in the poem. Poem integrated into the illustration, and on the side of the Twelve spreads similar in format to the first and third spread below, with a Peek Inside Below and at right are three sample

3-6 DRA Level: 40 Grade Level Equiv: 4.7 Guided Reading: S Reviews Best Books of the Year * Booklist Editor's Song of the Water Boatman & Other Pond Poems Publishers Synopsis Book information Sign up to receive wonderful books and offers in your inbox Cookie Policy. Natural world! This book is succeeds on all fronts!īooks - 2006 * School Library Journal Best Books of 2006 * National Council of Teachers of English Notable Book in Language Arts * National Science Teachers Association Outstanding Science Trade Book * Publisher's Habitats and Prange's stunning woodcuts, which are a perfect The poem 'Diving Beetle's Food-Sharing Rules'.basically, he doesn't!)Īdd to this the wealth of accessible information on pond Poems, which are not only lyrical, clever, and evocative, butĪlso accessible for young ones. Sidman usesĭifferent poetic forms (haiku, rhymed and unrhymed verse.) in her

Teaching, most notably in poetry and habitat units.

There are so many layers to this book and so many ways to use it in

Song of the water boatman