Languages

As a teacher I've racked up a collection of unspent gift cards. Being that Susan and I are moving, we thought it'd be a good idea to redeem these cards, especially since most of the cards were more than two years old. So, today we treated ourselves to Starbucks, Jamba Juice, Barnes and Noble, and Pegasus Books. At Pegasus I bought two graphic novels that looked interesting. One is Andre the Giant, the true story of WWF wrestler Andre Roussimoff. The book's created by Box Brown, and I who know NOTHING about wrestling was drawn to the clear, bold line and sparse text. I'm looking forward to reading this.

The other graphic novel I bought is a French one called Chroniques d'un Pigeon Parisien. It was written by then 25-year-old Pome Bernos. 

My second language was French which was taught in the American schools in Orléans and Olivet. After returning to the States I had no one to speak French with and soon lost the ability to speak it. Spanish is my third language, taught in my elementary school in California, and has superseded my French. 

Then this school year I was fortunate to have a student who was a monolingual French speaker! It was a joy to work at recovering one of the languages of my childhood. I was also fortunate that another student had brought a French comic book, Allez raconte une histoire (Lewis Trondheim, José Parrondo) to help the new student feel at home. 

I, of course, borrowed the book as soon as I could. I had to give it back before finishing it though.