El ruiseñor: The Nightingale

Abstract

This is a 24-page pamphlet 8 square. Its left-hand pages present each a sentence in Spanish and English. The right-hand pages present lively full-page colored illustrations. After the emperor has thrilled to the music of the real nightingale, he receives the gift of a mechanical nightingale: a bird made of metal that sung when winded (10). Do we not say wound rather than winded? The emperor kept playing the mechanical nightingale and its one song. He took the real nightingale out and released it. Then the mechanical nightingale broke down. Soon enough, the emperor got very sick. The real nightingale flew back to him and serenaded him with beautiful music. He got better and declared that the medicine that did it was the nightingale's song. One of the best illustrations is the cameo on the final page, showing the mechanical nightingale with a sprung neck. Apparently first published in Spanish in 2005. This bilingual edition then came out two years later. Ten other books in the series are pictured on the back cover. The only other fable, as far as I can tell, is La lechera: The Milkmaid, which I have. It was published in 2005.