Pobre Ana

"Pobre Ana" is a textbook written in Spanish. It is written for learning and practicing Spanish as a second language. It was written by Blaine Ray in 1999 to be used with his TPRS method. In 2000, a French edition was published as "Pauvre Anne". Both editions were released solely as paperback, as they were only 39 pages long. The German version is called "Arme Anne". The vocabulary of this simple book is 300 of the most frequent words in the target language. In 2001, a second book was released: "Patricia va a California". There are now four level one books, four level two books and one level three book in the series. This book is used to reinforce vocabulary and as a source of comprehensible input in the target language. It also gives opportunities to discuss cultural differences between Mexico and the United States. This short novel may be used in Spanish 1 classrooms because it is written using simple words and phrases to aid comprehension.

Plot summary

Ana, a young girl of the age of 15, thinks that her life is miserable. She has problems with her family in the U.S. state of California, and is jealous of her rich friends, Sara and Elsa. She thinks that her luck may change when one day she gets the opportunity to visit Mexico for three months. After explaining that the opportunity is free to her financially challenged father, she is allowed to go. At first, Mexico scares her. She soon realizes that she is actually quite lucky in the context of the whole world. After living with a family poorer than hers she learns to be grateful for what she has and is happy. The last sentence in the novel is (translated as) "Ana smiles because life is perfect."