A Roof!

Gr 3-4–After a storm blows through the community, a young girl, Maya, and her father find a roof that has been blown off of someone else’s house, and thus begins their quest to find the owners. Through their search, Maya and her father take readers through their Filipino community and demonstrate one way that a person can help their neighbors. Readers get a smattering of Filipino language, learning words that are not defined when used in the story, other than in context clues, but have translations in the back of the book. The illustrations offer beautifully rendered images of the destruction after a natural disaster, demonstrating the courage of Maya, her father, and the community in helping each other recover, while the well-paced story shows the commitment they all have to rebuild. While the message of working together to achieve great things is clear, an author’s note further explains what life is like in the Philippines.