The Italian 4 honors class translated a book from Spanish to Italian last year and author Jen Degenhartd recently came to visit WHHS to sign that very book.

After connecting in a webinar with author Jen Degenhartd last year, Italian Teacher Anna Porto came up with the idea of translating books into Italian with her class.

“In general, there are not enough exciting Italian books for students to read and work with” Mrs. Porto said.

Ms. Degenhartd loved Mrs. Porto’s idea, so the students translated Degenhartd’s Spanish-Language book, “La Chica Nueva,” into “La Nuova Ragazza” (“The New Girl” in English.)

The students said the process was fun, but they did come across a few complications.

“Depending on the way a sentence is used, it can change a word a lot,” said Roberto Ceja, a senior at the high school who was one of the students that worked on the book translation.

Even with the struggles to get things as accurate as possible, their hard work paid off and gave them great end results.

“To use what I learned and to turn it into a big project and make it tangible like a book, it’s great,” Luis Berrios, at the high school said when asked his thoughts on how it felt to have it being published.

The students are now working on a new book this year called, “La Vita dei Randagi.” (“Dogland”’ in English.) Look out for this upcoming book, or if you’d like to purchase their previous book, head to https://www.puenteslanguage.com.