The first three books which got me started were quite interesting that I decided to really make the list for the following weeks and not just pick whatever we fancy. Might as well structure it so we can make the most of the resources available.
"Mga Tambay sa Tabi-tabi," is an interesting reference-like book for the supernatural beings in the Filipino folklore. Most if it were pretty new for me since I'm not that fond of reading scary stories at all. Some, I just heard from my Mom whenever she would be chatting with other adult when I was younger. It all seems very interesting listening to these stories. Not in a storybook kind of retelling but very casual way that it really did happen in real life of someone the speaker knows. I don't think it's more appealing than that. Unfortunately, my son had to contend with the storybook kind since his mother leans toward the scientific stories and wouldn't have a direct experience in these field.
I do love the stories though, specially the legends. I remember the well-thumbed in small pocketbook of legends in my elementary school library long time ago. This got me to pick up the book, "Ang Alamat ng Talangka." Modern writer penned this but it still has the elements of a traditional legend. Some Tagalog words would probably be at least for 5th grader coz there were some long and mouthful words. Not the casual storytelling words to use.
The next book is "Ang Mahiwagang Biyulin." I would have spelled the word violin as "bayolin" as I am pretty confused sometimes. This story has easy words even for me. It may be okay for a third grader to read at least. I managed to pick some vocabulary that I know might be unfamiliar or hard to decipher for my son. It was a fun read though, partly because of the little mouse appear in every page. The story itself was interesting.
This week's set (at least for the next two weeks) is the first on the list that I have. I tried to cover some folktales, legends, and biography. There were no legends that made it into this set. I was looking for another Lola Basyang stories but only found one. Juan Tamad sounds interesting and funny so I included it. And of course, the Aquino bio since yesterday was Aquino Memorial Day. We might start with this.
To whoever made these books available in the local library, thank you. I just hope other immigrant moms will find and make use of these. Since there were other books in other languages there like Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese, Indonesian, and I can only guess what else.
