Chameleon Swims

by Laura Hambleton

Chameleon learns to swim with the help of his friend Salamander.

Genres: Fiction, Childrens

16 pages, Board Book

First published February 1, 2005

Reviews

[Dara · Rating 3 out of 5]

If I wasn’t already a Spanish speaker that could understand the similarities between Spanish & Portuguese & derive the meaning that way, these books would have me somewhat lost. I think it’s really important when making a bilingual book to make the translations between languages as accurate or literal as possible, without omitting anything. Even in a book as short & simple as this there are words & parts of sentences omitted from the English translations, like in this example:

O Camaleão nada debaixo de água. Glu!, Glu…faz ele, sem respirar!
Chameleon swims under water. Glug, glug!

Wouldn’t recommend as a good learning resource for that reason, unless you already know a Romance language & can fill in the blanks yourself.

[Brooke · Rating 4 out of 5]

While the story line is simple, I'm excited to have found a Vietnamese-English board book. The illustrations are bright, eye-catching collages. I hope it will encourage my Vietnamese students to celebrate their bilingualism.