I Am Different: Can You Find Me? - Hardcover

Padmanabhan, Majula

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 157091639X ISBN 13: 9781570916397

Publisher: Charlesbridge, 2011

Synopsis

This clever picture book presents sixteen visual puzzles. On every page, readers must pick out the one item that is different from the rest--a different color, a different shape, reversed from left to right, or just asleep when others are awake!

The phrase "Can you find me?" is shown in a different language on every page.

Can you find me?
Me puedes encontrar?
Unaweza kupata mimi?

About this title

About the Author:

Manjula Padmanabhan is an author and illustrator in India.

Review:

An informational picture book presenting diverse languages to child readers, this offering from Indian novelist, playwright and cartoonist Padmanabhan and the Global Fund for Children is a tour de force.

Each page opening includes a brightly colored picture puzzle image with one item differing from the others, accompanied by the question Can you find me? written in one of 16 languages from page to page and supported by phonetic pronunciation guides. Supplemental text provides information about each language, including words potentially familiar to English speakers ( Algebra, giraffe, and candy are words you might know that come from Arabic, for example) or words and phrases for readers to learn ( Count to five in Cree: peyak, nîso, nisto, newo, nîyânan ). The resulting whole broadens readers awareness of how languages evolve and adopt words from one another, culminating in photos of a child using American Sign Language to present a non-textual visualization of language. Backmatter includes an answer key to the picture puzzles (with the caveat that there may be different right answers according to each reader s unique perspective) and a closing note about language diversity.

A substantive, engaging title for multilingual education. Bravo! --Kirkus Reviews

Leave it to the Global Fund for Children (and the always innovative small press Charlesbridge) to offer a colorful new book that uses a clever game of hide-and-seek to celebrate our differences, while sharing our universal sameness. And, of course, novelist/playwright/cartoonist Manjula Padmanabhan also deserves equal praise for her entertaining, enlightening creation.

Although 80% of the U.S population speaks only English (I confess I cringed at that statistic, given how so much of the rest of the world is multi-lingual), many many many languages were brought to American shores from all over the world. We are, after all, a continent of immigrants, with roots that extend all over the world over hundreds and hundreds of years, as well as origins that begin right here for indigenous Americans.

Here you ll learn how to say, Can you find me? in 16 different languages from Hebrew to Cree to Hawaiian to Arabic to Chinese to Spanish to Nahuatl to even American Sign Language (!) along with 16 puzzles in which you ll need to identify the one crow, iguana, flower, ladder, key, etc. etc. that is not like the others.

With each puzzle, you also get a little language lesson, including the many words from various other languages that have become a part of everyday English. Take a guess where these words might have originated: hallelujah, ukulele, giraffe, candy, tote, silk, shampoo, and so many more. You ll just have to get the book if you re not sure of the answers!

In case you needed any more convincing, click here to hear some of the Global Fund staff read to you from this delightful title. Don t you want to join in? --BookDragon, Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Program.

Leave it to the Global Fund for Children (and the always innovative small press Charlesbridge) to offer a colorful new book that uses a clever game of hide-and-seek to celebrate our differences, while sharing our universal sameness. And, of course, novelist/playwright/cartoonist Manjula Padmanabhan also deserves equal praise for her entertaining, enlightening creation.

Although 80% of the U.S population speaks only English (I confess I cringed at that statistic, given how so much of the rest of the world is multi-lingual), many many many languages were brought to American shores from all over the world. We are, after all, a continent of immigrants, with roots that extend all over the world over hundreds and hundreds of years, as well as origins that begin right here for indigenous Americans.

Here you ll learn how to say, Can you find me? in 16 different languages from Hebrew to Cree to Hawaiian to Arabic to Chinese to Spanish to Nahuatl to even American Sign Language (!) along with 16 puzzles in which you ll need to identify the one crow, iguana, flower, ladder, key, etc. etc. that is not like the others.

With each puzzle, you also get a little language lesson, including the many words from various other languages that have become a part of everyday English. Take a guess where these words might have originated: hallelujah, ukulele, giraffe, candy, tote, silk, shampoo, and so many more. You ll just have to get the book if you re not sure of the answers!

In case you needed any more convincing, click here to hear some of the Global Fund staff read to you from this delightful title. Don t you want to join in? --BookDragon, Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Program.

About this edition

• Publisher: Charlesbridge
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 157091639X
• ISBN 13: 9781570916397
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 40
• Illustrator: Padmanabhan Majula