My Name is María Isabel

Ada, Alma Flor. My Name is María Isabel. Illus.K.Dyble Thompson. New York, NY : Simon & Shuster,1993.


This book was about a little girl named María Isabel Salazar López. She had moved to a new school two months after school had started. The teacher decided to call her Mary because there were already two Marías in the class. María could not get used to being called Mary. She was very proud of her name and did not realize that the teacher was calling on her when she called her Mary. She was trying to like her new school, but her new name kept causing trouble. The teacher seemed angry because Mary never answered her. She almost missed the school Christmas play because of her new name. She did not know what to do about her problem. Finally, she revealed her problem to the teacher in the form of a Christmas wish. When the teacher realized how María had been struggling with the new name she stopped calling her Mary. Mary's parents got to watch her perform in the play after all.
I liked this book. There is at least one thing in this book that any child could identify with. It might be that like María they are proud of there name, and feel a strong connection to there family. Many children know what it is like to go to a new school and have to make new friends. There is also the idea of being misunderstood, and having a problem that you don't know how to fix. The teacher did not know why Mary was not responding, and María did not know how to tell the teacher that she did not recognize the name. I wonder why María did not tell her family about the new name her teacher had given her. Was she too embarrassed or ashamed to tell her parents about it? Although this book was intended for children, I think it can speak to us as future teachers as well. We have to be very careful with our students. We need to make them feel welcome and important. We need to respect children and their different cultures, religions and nationalities. It is a part of who they are. If we make any of these things seem unimportant, then we make them feel unimportant as well. We need to appreciate and celebrate differences in our classrooms. I think teachers need to learn to pronounce foreign names as best they can. It can help a child feel safer and more welcome. I think that a child always need to feel safe and welcome in the classroom.