By: Omar S. Casteñeda
Illustrated: by Enrique O. Sanchez
Reading Level: Grade 3-4
Genre: General Fiction
Theme/Subject: Character and Values
If you are looking for a way to get your students excited and interested in learning about other cultures in different countries around the world, Abuela’s Weave is the book for you!!!!
In Abuela’s Weave, a young Guatemalan girl is learning to weave traditional Mayan tapestries with her grandmother. Esperanza’s grandmother is an amazing weaver and is teaching her granddaughter her skills as they plan to sell their goods at the market. However, Esperanza is afraid that all the other sellers will out sell them since they are using all the fancy machines to produce their goods.
As Esperanza starts hanging up all her work people soon start coming and admiring her elaborate weavings. People start coming to her and taking picture of her work. At the end of the book Esperanza turns out to be a big success with the shoppers and ends up selling all the items that her and her grandmother made. People even come up to Esperanza asking her if she has anymore. At the end of the story Esperanza’s grandmother is very proud of her. Esperanza ends up learning an important lesson about family tradition and overcoming fear.
This is such a great book because it teaches the students about different cultures, family traditions, overcoming fear and also about the relationship with grandparents.
Here are some ideas on how you can use this book to create a lesson plan for the classroom.
