Good Read: Papel de Liha

Book Title: Papel De Liha

Author: Ompong Remigio

Publisher: Adarna House, Inc. – Philippines

This award-winning story honors the untiring love a mother has for her family. She works all day: cooks their meals, does the laundry, cleans each nook and cranny. All this work must make her hands as rough as sandpaper! This distresses the little girl in our story who overhears her aunt say that sandpaper hands will make her father leave her mother!

My review: This heartwarming story provides a perfect jumpstart for our Family Theme. My pupils love listening to the catchy rhythmic rhyme at each end of the sentence. Though the book has a plot and a length intended for a grade schooler, my pupils never get tired and bored with its whimsical use of words.

The colorful and vivid illustrations are as magical as the book is. Every time, I read this book to my pupils, they always end up finding new interesting objects in each page.

The lesson of the story is very simple: The love of a mother is perfect. Surely, everyone can relate to that.

Preschool Rating: (4/5) ♥♥♥♥ – A very good read!

• Very good and practical storyline
• Fun use of words
• Interesting and colorful illustrations.

Other themes you can use this story with:

• Sense of Touch (Texture of Objects)
• Rooms in the House
• Rhymes
• Roles of each family member

Tips in using this book:

• It will help a lot if you can show a sample of sand paper before reading the book.
• If you’re using this for preschoolers, you may want to use the big book version.
• Make this book more interesting by letting the kids chant with you some of the repeating phrases in the story.