John M. Pittaro

A collection of short stories in Spanish for beginning students of the language, with grammatical exercises.

These stories were adapted from various sources using a limited vocabulary and simple grammar. The stories were chosen to appeal to schoolchildren and are a mix of comic tales and stories of adventure and heroism. Each tale is accompanied by a series of basic comprehension questions about the text. The stories are illustrated by monochrome illustrations in a "storybook" style. At the end of the book there are a series of grammatical exercises (which I did not go through) and a vocabulary list containing English definitions for each word used in the stories.

Using stories as a way to engage students with the language is a great idea, but personally I found the stories to be rather dull. Perhaps younger readers would enjoy them more. Still, I think this could be useful as a supplemental resource for beginner Spanish learners.… (mais)