Summary: Don Pedro wants to carve the best radish sculpture and claim first prize. All goes off with out a hitch when he carves the castle, knights, horses, and a throne. All he needs now is the queen, and there just happens to be one lumpy radish left. When he goes to grab the radish, it suddenly leaps off the table and rolls away saying, " places to go, people to see, out of my way, you can't carve me!' As the radish rolls away she goes by several different places, and after every place they begin to chase the radish along with Don Pedro. After chasing the radish through several places, they yell, "Stop! You'll dry out and fall apart." When the radish stopped for a breath, Don Pedro scooped her up in his bag and takes her home, where he carves her into a beautiful queen for his castle, with a huge smile and running legs. Don Pedro wins first prize and shares his winnings with all who helped him chase the radish.

Personal Reaction: I love this book. I had never heard of it, but will be looking to add it to my collection soon! I love this spanish/vegetable version of the ginger bread man. This is very clever, and fun to read aloud.

Classroom Extension Ideas:
1. Have your kids make their every own radish man/woman.
2. Have the spanish speaking students help you pronounce and read the spanish words.
3. Have your students make their very own sculptures.
4. Make cut outs of all the events/people the radish goes through and let your students put them in order, or use your flannel board.

Summary: Fun, fast paced story that explains the chase of the runaway radish. A cook Don Pedro was trying to sculpt a radish for the Night of the Radish Festival in Mexico when his radish jump up and sprinted away. This story tells of the adventure and people the radish and Don Pedro meet.

Personal Reaction: Fun, interesting story, I never knew that in Mexico they had a festival of radishes. I loved the illustrations and the runaway radish who brought together many different people in Mexico. Very good book to read at the beginning of the school year to help bring together groups of students who are different.

Classroom Extensions:
1. After reading the book give the students a history lesson of what the festival is in Mexico and how it originated and what it is all about.
2. Have students review some of the Spanish words and create a crossword puzzle to help students learn the words in Spanish and their definition in English. ( )

Summary: It's about a man named Don Pedro who likes to carve radishes. Then one day a radish ran away, so it could see the world and all the people. The radish caused so much disturbance with the towns people that finally by the end it got tired, and dried up and was thrown away.

Personal Reaction: I thought this story was very interesting, and it reminded me of the gingerbread man. It was cool because it also had the original Spanish version. Then at the back of the book it had translations for specific words.

Classroom Extension: You could have the kids make up their own character who runs away and what happens along the way. Another thing you could do is you could read this book while studying the Spanish culture.

I liked this book a lot - it is kind of like a Spanish version of the Gingerbread man, but with a different flair. My kids enjoyed it, both in Spanish and English, but mostly if I read a line first in Spanish, then in English. I reccomend this book if you are working on becoming bilingual, or just for fun. ( )

The Gingerbread Man Mexican/Spanish/Hispanic style. This was a great fit for my 3rd grade Folktale unit. I didn't care for the illustrations only because it made the story a little darker in tone than I cared to read to my students. The story gives students a lot of comfort with the sequencing with just a little bit of flavor. I think this book is more of an alternate example of the concepts of what is considered a folktale. Children will enjoy the story, but it's not in my opinion going to be considered a classic.