Rooster / Gallo

By Jorge Luján

A rooster heralds the beginning and end of the day in this imaginative and beautifully illustrated bilingual poem.

The song of the rooster draws forth the universe and gives way to the dance of beings and objects as day draws its first brilliant breath. This book is so supremely simple that a baby can delight in it, and yet so complex that an adult reader can find joy in the poem and beautiful images over and over again.

Jorge Lujan dreamed this myth and, when he wrote it, understood that the rooster is the poet of the day. Manuel Monroy dipped his pen in the ink of the night and, when he withdrew it, found it was spangled with stars.

Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.K.2
With prompting and support, retell familiar stories, including key details.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.K.4
Ask and answer questions about unknown words in a text.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.K.7
With prompting and support, describe the relationship between illustrations and the story in which they appear (e.g., what moment in a story an illustration depicts).

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.1.2
Retell stories, including key details, and demonstrate understanding of their central message or lesson.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1554989361
• ISBN13: 9781554989362
• Release Date: October 2016
• Publisher: Groundwood Books
• Length: 24 Pages
• Weight: 0.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.2" x 7.7" x 7.4"
• Age Range: 2 years and up
• Grade Range: Preschool and higher

Customer Reviews

ELLs, Spanish, Poems, Reenact it

All ages of beginner Spanish students like this book. I teach this very dense but short and easy poetic book to beginner ELLs. They enjoy being a rooster, the sun, the night, the stars as they say their line and walk across the stage. It is a must have for Spanish-English bilingual programs.

beloved by our toddler

We checked this out from our local library and had to buy it based on the reaction of our 19-month-old daughter who adores this book. Gallo is a very simple, fun, unique, beautifully illustrated poem, which is easy to memorize in both languages even with my high school-level Spanish. This is fabulous for our family as my daughter is truly bilingual thanks to our nanny while I am trying to keep up with her Spanish The poem is an imaginative story that toddlers can enjoy, while adults can appreciate the unique imagery. Our daughter giggles out loud when the "sun opens it hands" or the "rooster eats the stars"). Even at this age she understands something is silly about that. I think those poetic images help her conceptual ability and creativity. My daughter and I have a whole hand signal routine (a la "wheels on the bus" or "itsy bitsy spider") to go with the story that she cannot get enough of - in fact, she asks for me to recite the poem in the car, at bedtime, in the grocery store, anywhere. Truly a fun book that can provides hours of entertainment.