Lorena Fruto, a third grade Glenshire student, was surprised to find her father waiting in her classroom ready to read a story out loud with her teacher Mrs. Markheim. All her classmates were holding a beautiful bilingual picture book titled, and#8220;Shhhh and#8230; Don’t Tell Grandma/ Shhhh and#8230; No Le Digas a Abuelita.and#8221; Fruto’s father read the pages in Spanish and her teacher read in English. Much to her surprise, Lorena Fruto noticed the young girl in the story looked just like her! Her classmates were excited when they noticed the similarity, too.

and#8220;Shhhh and#8230; Don’t Tell Grandma/ Shhhh and#8230; No Le Digas a Abuelitaand#8221; is a delightful repetitive bilingual story written by local Susan Bruno and illustrated by Sally Schultz. The story is about twins planning a surprise birthday party for their grandma and their excursion to the market to purchase all the ingredients they need to make the soup for the fiesta! Susan Bruno was Fruto’s preschool teacher and gave illustrator Sally Schultz a photograph when she was just four years old to use as the image of the young girl in the story. The other illustrations came from pictures that Bruno took while visiting an orphanage in Honduras. Much like the grandma in the story, Fruto was given quite a surprise in her classroom!

All the students were given a copy of the book to take home to read to their families. The book can be purchased at Bookshelf at Hooligan Rocks in Truckee.

and#8212; Submitted to the Sun by Mercie Galvin