Saturday Sancocho by Leyla Torres is an introduction to the art of compromise. Maria Lily and her grandparents make sancocho, a stew of meat and vegetables, every Saturday. However, "One Saturday morning Papa Angelino says there is no money for sancocho. Not even a penny to buy the vegetables, let alone a chicken." So, Mama Ana takes a dozen eggs to the local market and, stall by stall, bargains her way to all the ingredients she needs. This is a clever story in that it's something of a math problem. How do you turn 12 eggs into the vegetables and chicken needed to make sancocho? I really like how this story uses different vocabulary to represent each scene. Every one is an exchange between Mama Ana and a seller, and yet, the text for each interaction is different. She bargains, trades, barters, settles, and haggles. And every time, two people must compromise.
My Picture Book Talk for this story is here.
The
Wadsworth Atheneum uploaded a video of Docent Augusta Gonzalez reading this
story in Spanish at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-XF_3gbLTI
.
Lauren Taylor has a Synonym Detective Worksheet. Cathy Hoffart's Growing Class has a Synonym Match-Up {Match-Up Cut and Paste}. Fox Bridge Learning has a Synonyms Worksheet.
