FOR FREE RESOURCES, SCROLL DOWN TO THE BOTTOM OF THIS POST.

I am thrilled to present my first novel: Alicia (also available in French).

SYNOPSIS

“When Alicia, a girl who lives in the town of Liberia, Costa Rica, finds out she and her family are moving to San José in a month, she is far from happy. Her friend suggests she make a list of the most important things she wants to accomplish before she leaves. Alicia writes four items on her list and sets off on a quest to discover what truly matters to her.”

READING LEVEL

The novel has 4,000 words and 300 headwords with lots of cognates. I wrote the original story with level 2 and above students in mind. 

Inspired by Dr. Mason’s Story Listening method, I focused on writing an interesting story in French first, then my dear friend Claudia Rodriguez adapted it to Spanish, and then I made it as comprehensible as possible by reducing the headwords from 800 to 300 but still keeping the language natural and rich. My husband is a Tico, and helped make sure my characters sounded “authentic”.

Here is a sample for you to read in order to decide if the language is appropriate for your students.

PRAISE FOR “ALICIA”

FREE RESOURCES

For those of you who want to supplement the story, there is a cultural glossary at the end of the book. Here is a list of ideas/resources:

• Explore the history of Liberia and check out Café Liberia
• Plan a visit to Rincón de la Vieja, one of my favorite national parks in Costa Rica
• Tell the legend of “Princesa Curabanda” using Story Listening supplementation
• Debate the place of women in sports using Alicia as a starting point, and Deportistas Hispanohablantes as real life examples
• Discuss immigration in Costa Rica, using resources from https://cenderos.org/
• Follow Wild Soul Project on Instagram (Rafa’s t-shirt!) and discuss environmental and fashion intersectional topics such as algodon consciente.

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