Pobre Ana: Una Novela Breve y Facil Totalmente en Espanol (Nivel 1 - Libro A) (Spanish Edition) Paperback – June 1, 2000

Okay, the story is pretty boring, and the text is repetitive. However, this is a great book for beginners. Remembering back to my how I was taught Spanish, I seem to remember learning things like greetings, how to introduce myself, simple ways to describe people, how to talk about my family, and present tense verbs. That is about what's in this book. The vocabulary is only about 400 words, and the verbs are (I think) all in the present tense. There's even a mini-dictionary in the back, containing all the words in the book, for quick reference.The plot is appropriate for all ages, and describes a girl's trip to Mexico (I think it was) and what she learned from her experiences there. Like I said, expect a lot of repetition, but it's nice that there's an actual plot that holds together.If you are wondering the type of content, expect things like: "Ana lives in Mexico. She has one brother and one sister. Her brother is tall and has brown hair. Her sister is short and has black hair. Her mother works at the hospital. Her mother is a doctor." Except, obviously, in Spanish. Not going to win any literature awards, but great for learning.

This is a wonderful novel for Spanish I students in High School. I could even use it with 7th and 8th graders, I believe. We sue it during the summer to keep their Spanish abilities active, and also to build confidence and comprehension. This book does many things for a student: 1) builds vocabulary 2) improves comprehension level 3) motivates students to find out "what happens" 4) provides a new way to increase Spanish knowledge.As a teacher of ages 3 to 18 year olds, I use excerpts from these books here and there, and use them for a Summer Spanish reading program each summer. Great idea and execution!Sra. GoseAuthor of  Flip Flop Spanish: Ages 3-5: Level 1

It is nice to see that now I could use the novel for Spanish 1 or Spanish 2 (present or past tense).

This book is a beginner's dream. If you've had some beginning Spanish classes, then you can practise reading and understanding the words in this simple story. A couple of my friends and I are using it as a basis for our study class. I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys learning Spanish.

My granddaughter (5th grader) is learning basic Spanish but is tired of the rote memorization. I got her this little book and now she is actually reading! The young woman in the story is 15, so her problems and home life relate to middle and high-schoolers. The text is repetitive enough to provide practice for new words, but not cheesy. My granddaughter reads the same pages over every day to improve fluency, and surprised herself with her progress. I wish I had had these when I was learning Spanish. Reading real stories out loud improves pronunciation, fluency, spelling, vocabulary, and best of all, attitude!

Be careful - I bought the lowest price book and it was several versions too old and I had to go buy another. I guess my teacher could have warned me but just a warning that there are some VERY VERY old copies out there and the text does not match the most current version.

I received an older edition, despite a more recent one being pictured. Watch out as the words and page numbers are different and I had to buy another copy to keep up with class.

I like this reader very much and was going to give a five-star review - I’ll get into that later. True to its purpose, it’s really great as the first story book for beginners. Unlike many other “beginning” story books out there, you don’t need to have finished learning all of the tenses and verb categories to enjoy reading the passage in each chapter. For many other beginning books, I found myself looking up the dictionary excessively - almost every other sentence. Not this one, I hardly had to crack open the dictionary. The author repeats an expression in slightly different sentence structures within the story. This method offers the learner a very efficient and natural way of recognizing and remembering the meaning of a new word, as well as different ways to express the same idea. There’s no need to memorize vocabulary lists. There’s a glossary at the back of the book if one must look up the meaning. Even if you can guess the meaning of a new word based on the context of the passage, the glossary offers a quick way to check whether your guess is correct. This is where I remove a star from what would otherwise be a perfect review. I find the glossary missing a few words here and there but this is a common problem in foreign language textbooks. So, for each chapter, I’d have to consult an external dictionary or electronic translator once or twice because the book’s glossary is missing a word or two for that chapter. Overall, I have an enjoyable experience reading this story book and look forward to ordering more similar Spanish readers from this series.

Great little book