If you teach heritage speakers, Spanish 3, 4, 5, or AP Spanish, you need to get this book into your students’ hands. El libro salvaje, by Juan Villoro, was published in Mexico and has been around for some time, but Spanish teachers in the United States may not be aware of it. It’s an interesting story and valuable for Spanish students—a compelling story with mystery and light romance that encourages reading. what’s not to love? I read this book with an adult I am tutoring in Spanish and it helped him immensely. Then I read it again, and again; making notes all along the way.

I recommend getting this novel at least for your classroom library and perhaps for whole class reading. The protagonist is a 13 year old boy with a very smart girlfriend, and the reading level is right for high level 3, and level 4 or 5 Spanish students.

I used to recommend the Harry Potter books in Spanish and I even wrote a book to help students with it, Read Harry Potter in Spanish.  Those books are a good way to get students to acquire grammar painlessly because they are told from an omniscient narrator that explains how everyone is scheming and thinking about what everyone else wants, so there are many instances of the subjunctive. But El libro salvaje has more of that interwoven in the story.

The story will appeal to students and as they read they will pick up amazing amounts of grammar. As Stephen Krashen has observed:

“Acquisition of the subjunctive was related to the amount of free voluntary reading done in Spanish, not to amount of study, including specific study of the subjunctive, or length of residence in a Spanish-speaking country.”

―Stephen Krashen (2001). Free Voluntary Reading, p. 27

According to this study, the only significant predictor of the ability to use the subjunctive was the amount of free voluntary reading done in Spanish; not the amount of formal study of Spanish, not the amount of study specifically aimed at the subjunctive, and not how long subjects had lived in a Spanish-speaking country. Those  were not significant predictors of subjunctive competence.

We may still need to teach some aspects of grammar overtly, but frequent reading at the right level will make all aspects of grammar more comprehensible and will make it stick with students. But in the meantime, novels are the way to go because novels are enjoyable. Reading a novel is different than studying, and students pick up more useful grammar as they read. It’s a win/win.

The advanced grammar intertwined in El libro salvaje will get your students to understand and use grammar that they would otherwise have to painfully slog through. That’s what happened with my Spanish students with Harry Potter, and it happened again before my eyes with my adult student.

Here are a few delights this nerdy Spanish teacher found in the book:

• The protagonist mentions several times that he doesn’t really like to read and that he is not a good student. His kindly uncles assures him that this is OK because a book will choose him. And Juan (the main character) does have a few books that he likes to read over and over.

• By my count, there are 112 uses of “como si…” expressions. As you know, these sayings use the past subjunctive and express imaginary ideas or statements contrary to fact, often with valuable metaphors. Those 112 expressions cannot be happenstance. The author is training readers to compare concrete happenings with counterfactual ideas in their minds—a valuable habit to instill. Rather than distracting, these como si… expressions enrich the story immensely.

• I counted 621 uses of the subjunctive in the story. A bit obsessive of me to be sure, but I was introducing the subjunctive to my tutee and was assuring him that simply by reading he would begin to pick it up.

• There are at least 23 “darse cuenta de…” expressions. The author wants readers to realize some things they hadn’t before.

• It encourages more reading because, 1) it takes place in a library, 2) the eponymous character of the story is a book that cannot be tamed, and 3) it alludes to many well-known authors and their works, from both the English and Spanish-speaking worlds.

• It mentions the potential errors of technology and modernity at least 8 times — something to keep in mind in our headlong embrace of anything new.

• The story alludes to the “otherness” that many of us (and especially teenagers) often feel. The author and the uncle in the story compare themselves to the ornitorrinco (duckbilled platypus)—an eccentric animal that defies classification—at least 10 times.

• My favorite chapter is La historia que cuenta un libro no siempre es igual, because who hasn’t read a book and got something entirely different when reading it again? Or discussing a book with a friend who picked up completely different messages from it than you did?

• A couple of lines that stuck with me near the end of the book: En los momentos de angustia en que me sentí más solo,los librosfueron mis compañeros. Desde entonces han estado conmigo en las buenas y en las malas.

In these times when reading holds less appeal for many students, we need to get compelling and valuable books like this into their hands.