Like many of the students in her New York City kindergarten, Liza Tilson's first language was Spanish. Born in Columbia in 1919, of a Russian-Jewish father and a Spanish-Catholic mother, She immigrated to the U.S. in 1924. But unlike the children she taught more than forty years later, when
she, herself
entered kindergarten in 1925, she was
the only
non-English-speaking child in the whole school, and bilingual programs had not yet been heard of.
In her late forties, feeling considerable doubt and trepidation, she was recruited into the initial group of teachers in New York City's experimental and controversial bilingual program, and placed in a school where 75% of the students were non-English-speaking Hispanic children. With patience, determination, and as a matter of personal pride, she survived a rough initiation and a stressful and challenging first year.
After that came the good stuff-the subject matter of this book-
the wonderful kids!
In a series of enchanting, heart-warming "sketches" full of humor, mischief, and (much too often) sadness, Mrs. Tilson has captured the authentic flavor of each child's unique personality, and recreated for us, with all its joys and sorrows, successes and failures, the colorful world of an "inner city" bilingual kindergarten.