As IB Diploma candidates, they are required to participate in creativity, action, and service (CAS); however, they wanted to do more than just participate in club- or school-sponsored activities. They chose to develop a project that they could see through to its end and that they believed was of academic and social merit.
They spent close to 100 hours developing the idea for the book, then writing, translating, and editing (and editing some more) the text, and finally illustrating it.
Spanish teachers Hazel Gonzalez and Pat Allen were instrumental in confirming their translations, and Staples was generous in copying the books at a discounted cost.
The girls developed the idea for the project in response to their own intensive studies in IB Spanish and their desire to create something for children. “Children need to be exposed to foreign languages as early as possible so that they’ll feel more comfortable when they hear it being spoken around them,” says Izzy McLean.
“And they’ll certainly hear Spanish quite often in our area,” Emmy McLean says.
The two have now begun to visit children’s programs to read the story in both the English and Spanish versions. Their first visit was Tuesday, Sept. 18 with the Aberdeen Head Start students, where they were enthusiastically greeted by three- and four-year-olds eager to have high school visitors.
After reading the book, the McLeans gave each child two pictures form the book to color and a box of crayons. The McLean twins are the daughters of Mike and Ann McLean of Whispering Pines.
