Patricia va a California

I am studying Spanish for adults at a local Community Center and my teacher required we buy this book for class. Short, simple, inexpensive yet it touches on many topics in society today such as accepting and learning other cultures, exclusion and the importance of kindness. Not bad for a small paperback novelette.This is one of series ( the book before is "Pobre Anna" and continues the story of being an exchange student. The preterite appears about halfway through the book and I understand the series is designed to slowly get more difficult as your Spanish skills improve.The author does a good job in creating a story using elementary grade level Spanish, it is hard to find materials that are so well designed.The only problem, and this is an Amazon problem, is that I bought the cheapest book since I knew I was only going to read it once for class. The edition that I received was very very old and didn't match this new edition with the blue sky cover in the background. So I had to throw that one away and buy and 2nd one. Be careful to buy a version that is current, the old red cover doesn't match what everyone else in the class buys which is a problem if the teacher does read aloud practice in class like mine does.

Simple stories provide a great way for beginners to a new language to stockpile vocabulary. Though such stories, with their inevitable limitations, don't always provide stunning examples of narrative drama, the Blaine Ray series manages to provide engaging tales despite the small number of words utilized. "Patricia va a California" builds on its predecessors, "Berto y sus buenas ideas" and "Pobre Ana." Though the preterite tense appears only later in the story, the narrative includes compelling themes such as multiculturalism, travel and reconciliation. Though not a literary classic by any means (how could it be?) it provides a far more enticing platform for learning than memorizing vocabulary lists (which, admittedly, doesn't hurt either). Basic grammatical structures give words adequate contextual meaning to help meanings stick. The book even allows for reading without a vast knowledge of verb conjugation since the word list includes translations of the verbs in their conjugated form. This shouldn't encourage anyone to dismiss learning verb conjugations by rote, since extremely few books treat verbs in this simple manner and relying on conjugated word lists will only entrap learners in the beginner level.The story features Patricia, who lives in Panajachel in Lake Atitlan in Guatemala. Similar to Ana in the previous story, her family subsists on limited means. One day an opportunity to live in the United States falls at her feet and her family makes a large sacrifice to allow her to make the journey. She lives with a family in Ventura, California and soon meets the (presumably Caucasian) high school cheerleader Debbie Martin who mistakes Patricia for a Mexican and then loudly expresses her fervent dislike for Mexicans. Patricia's extremely friendly host family tells her to ignore Debbie's racist fulminations, but she can't shake them. One day Patricia sees Debbie cornered in her car by a man with a handgun. Patricia leaps into action and everything changes. This is pretty intense material for a beginner's book.Along the way the book discusses some aspects of Guatemalan culture and lifestyle, such as colorful huipils and some differences between indigenous Guatemalans and ladinos. Morality also plays a large role, including suggestions of anti-racism, anti-materialism and reconciliation. Those who made it through "Pobre Ana" will have little difficulty finishing this equally short book, though, as already said, the preterite appears a little over half way through, as do constructions with verbs and prepositions such as "para comer." So, true to the purpose of the entire series, expect slightly more advanced grammar from "Pobre Ana." The series continues with "Casi se Muere" which still remains at level 1, though also builds on material presented here. Overall, the Blaine Ray series presents great supplemental reading for learning Spanish. It can't take the place of more traditional learning, but it will enhance and enliven the experience of learning another language - and it may make those monotonous but necessary verb drills more meaningful.

I have been buying these little books, trying to get them in order as they are in a series. I began with one called El Viaje de su Vida, which I purchased out of order as it was a more advanced. Patricia va a California was a little too simple for the level I'm reading at, which is why I only gave it four stars. Nothing to do with the book itself, but rather for my purposes. I believe these books to be wonderful tools for the beginning Spanish student. The stories are simple but well-written, and the vocabulary/phrases in the back quite helpful. To be honest, I wish there were more of them at the mid-level. I currently own about six and will buy more as they are inexpensive and aid in building vocabulary, as well as giving one a feel for sentence structure.

I'm a Spanish teacher and of course I have been buying many Spanish books. A few days ago I bought ¿Dónde está Eduardo? and Patricia va a California. I like a lot the two books for this reason I decided to buy all books of Level 1 (A, B, C, D and E) and I'm very happy, Those book are stories very simple but effective to teach Spanish because they have a lot of words repetition to the students memorize the vocabulary in different ways. I love them. The only thing is that the books must have a translation maybe in the back. I don't know if they have a teacher edition. I will see... I decided go to the workshop for the seminar classes. I recommend them because these books have been very helpful to me.

The main character is a high school girl who has high school problems. As an adult beginning language student, it was useful for learning the language but I think the plot could be more interesting

All the other books in this series have an English dictionary in the back. I ordered this one as the first in the series thinking it would be the same. This is all in Spanish which may be helpful if I already knew Spanish.I thought that when it says Spanish Edition, it would be like the others in Spanish.

No matter what, Amazon always has the books my daughters need!

The story was simple and charming. The learning experience was easy; the glossary at the end of the book was very helpful.