Author: Carmen Filipi
Illustrated: Dave Long
Títle: The marvelous fountain and
other stories my grandma told me
Size: 25.5 cm
Pages: 55
ISBN 13: 978-0-9797814-0-7
Price: $14.95 (+ 3.00 shipping and
handling; add 0.75 for each
additional book)
Language: Bilingual in English and
Spanish. For more information,
please visit this link:
The Marvelous Fountain
Illustrated: Dave Long
Títle: The marvelous fountain and
other stories my grandma told me
Size: 25.5 cm
Pages: 55
ISBN 13: 978-0-9797814-0-7
Price: $14.95 (+ 3.00 shipping and
handling; add 0.75 for each
additional book)
Language: Bilingual in English and
Spanish. For more information,
please visit this link:
The Marvelous Fountain
Latina teacher from Phoenix asserts in new book
Traditional children stories promote values
Metaphorical stories and parables result in an indirect language more effective
than the direct language of reason, affirms in her new book Carmen Filipi, a
Phoenix educator with several decades of experience in the school system. In
her new literary work titled The marvelous fountain and other stories my grandma
told me, Filipi recovers and presents the oral tradition in which narrations
communicated and taught ethical, moral and civic values to children, mainly told
by grandmothers and other family members in the past.
“Teachers, social workers and parents notice a great emptiness in the civic,
moral and ethical development of today’s children”, explains Filipi, an elementary
and music teacher for the Roosevelt School District, in Phoenix. “We all agree
that children desperately need a guide for such an education. But how to do this
without giving pretentious lectures or long-winded speeches about what they
should or should not do or creating new punishments to force them to change
their behavior?” —questions the writer. +Based on her extensive experience in
working with hundreds of children, the author considers that all these sermons,
speeches and punishments seldom have an effect on children.
The marvelous fountain and other stories my grandma told me, is a bilingual book
that Carmen Filipi conceived based on her own experience. Having grown up in
an isolated, remote military outpost in the Paraguayan Chaco, near the border
with Bolivia, Filipi spent her childhood with no TV, radio, toys or books. Her only
distraction was listening to stories told by her grandmother and other
grandmothers of the area. It was through these stories that Filipi learned many
valuable lessons that guided and enriched her life.
“More than entertaining me, the stories taught me. Their purpose was to teach
children life lessons and moral lessons of ethics, civics, and justice. Through
these narrations we were taught how to be good members of the community:
honest, honorable, just and compassionate” —reflects Filipi about the benefit
these stories had in shaping her character. Her motivation in writing the book
was to preserve this tradition, as well as to deal with the social tendency in
which the majority of grandmothers no longer live close to their children or their
children’s children. “Many mothers must work away from the house to support
their children —laments Filipi— and their children spend many hours in front of
the TV, playing videogames or on the street.”
The marvelous fountain and other stories my grandma told me is a children’s book
that blends oral tradition, the strength the English and Spanish languages, and
the beauty of digital art to illustrate it. The author includes activities and
suggestions for educators and parents. Published by the Arizona-based Hispanic
Institute of Social Issues, this literary work documents one of the most
distinctive cultural costumes of Latin America, and contributes to fill in the need
for bilingual texts of schools, institutions, and families who seek not only teach
moral values and character-building lessons, but also to maintain the tradition.
than the direct language of reason, affirms in her new book Carmen Filipi, a
Phoenix educator with several decades of experience in the school system. In
her new literary work titled The marvelous fountain and other stories my grandma
told me, Filipi recovers and presents the oral tradition in which narrations
communicated and taught ethical, moral and civic values to children, mainly told
by grandmothers and other family members in the past.
“Teachers, social workers and parents notice a great emptiness in the civic,
moral and ethical development of today’s children”, explains Filipi, an elementary
and music teacher for the Roosevelt School District, in Phoenix. “We all agree
that children desperately need a guide for such an education. But how to do this
without giving pretentious lectures or long-winded speeches about what they
should or should not do or creating new punishments to force them to change
their behavior?” —questions the writer. +Based on her extensive experience in
working with hundreds of children, the author considers that all these sermons,
speeches and punishments seldom have an effect on children.
The marvelous fountain and other stories my grandma told me, is a bilingual book
that Carmen Filipi conceived based on her own experience. Having grown up in
an isolated, remote military outpost in the Paraguayan Chaco, near the border
with Bolivia, Filipi spent her childhood with no TV, radio, toys or books. Her only
distraction was listening to stories told by her grandmother and other
grandmothers of the area. It was through these stories that Filipi learned many
valuable lessons that guided and enriched her life.
“More than entertaining me, the stories taught me. Their purpose was to teach
children life lessons and moral lessons of ethics, civics, and justice. Through
these narrations we were taught how to be good members of the community:
honest, honorable, just and compassionate” —reflects Filipi about the benefit
these stories had in shaping her character. Her motivation in writing the book
was to preserve this tradition, as well as to deal with the social tendency in
which the majority of grandmothers no longer live close to their children or their
children’s children. “Many mothers must work away from the house to support
their children —laments Filipi— and their children spend many hours in front of
the TV, playing videogames or on the street.”
The marvelous fountain and other stories my grandma told me is a children’s book
that blends oral tradition, the strength the English and Spanish languages, and
the beauty of digital art to illustrate it. The author includes activities and
suggestions for educators and parents. Published by the Arizona-based Hispanic
Institute of Social Issues, this literary work documents one of the most
distinctive cultural costumes of Latin America, and contributes to fill in the need
for bilingual texts of schools, institutions, and families who seek not only teach
moral values and character-building lessons, but also to maintain the tradition.
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