Celebremos el Español: LéaLA

I´ve been looking forward to this weekend for months now because I get to satisfy my craving for the Spanish-language books that are so hard to find here! How? Thanks to the second annual LéaLA Spanish-language book fair in Los Angeles!

Last year I attended the first one with my girl and was in awe of the amount of books, lectures, activities and more that were happening all in celebration of the Spanish language. I became giddy when I saw some of the publishers I could only find in Mexico and even more when I ran into amazing educational and reading programs for kids in Spanish.

I´ve been told this year the LéaLA organizers have added three times more space for exhibits, sessions and a larger kids zone, and publishers are bringing much more stock since most of them ran out last year.

What this all means for you is to make sure you don´t miss out and do everything you can to head out this Friday, Saturday and/or Sunday to the Los Angeles Convention Center for this FREE event and be one more person there in support of promoting the Spanish language.

I have to share their mission so you can see just how much we identify with LéaLA:

This event seeks to encourage reading, promote Spanish-language books and foster recognition of the Latino population, their culture and customs.

¡Exacto!

Check out the LéaLA site for more info on all the author readings, singings, panels, exhibitors, concerts and so much more happening all three days. Here´s what we´re looking forward to:

• Singing along with my girl and José-Luis Orozco - one of our favorite bilingual kids musician and author – at 1pm on either Saturday or Sunday.
• Being in the audience of one of the many Spanish language plays for kids, like one called Un tutú buy apretado
• Mingling with other bilingual kids and their parents during the many cuenta cuentos or story time hours.
• Meeting up with some of our favorite publishers of books for bilingual kids, like the husband and wife team behind Heritage Language books.
• Aimlessly browsing the myriad of Spanish language books in the exhibit halls and letting the ones that are meant to be mine come to my hands. Over 180 publishing houses from all over Latina America!
• ¡Música! Of course, if LéaLA is a celebration of the Spanish language and Latino culture, we need some music! And these acts performing at the Nokia Theatre are huge: Gloria Trevi on Friday, Los Tigres del Norte on Saturday and Calle 13 with Illya Kuryaki on Sunday. You must purchase tickets for the concerts, but they are so worth it, don´t you think?!

I´ll be there on Saturday by myself, and then on Sunday con la familia. If you happen to go, shoot me a tweet or a comment so I can say ¡Hola!

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Disclosure: We are working in partnership with Latina Bloggers Connect to promote the fabulous event and have been compensated for the sponsorship. Love it when our sponsors are such a perfect match!