SB Finds : Books + Libros

In the mood for besos y abrazos? Your day is here. Remember to celebrate el día de San Valentín (or Día del Amor y la Amistad) with all of your Valentines, young and old. It’s a good opportunity to discuss the proverbial ties that bind and the reason we are all making such great efforts to raise well-rounded, bilingual kids: ¡AMOR! Keep the love alive by starting a collection of LOVEly books like the ones below. Find them, along with tonsRead More ...

A gem, that’s how I describe the three books I got last week from Heritage Language – a husband and wife team who noticed the huge need for bilingual books to help both Spanish and English language learners and decided to create their own books with audio. First of all, the books are well-written both in English and in Spanish. The best part? The translations are not literal, which means that the Heritage Language folks totally get it. Translating wordRead More ...

Like any little girl her age, my 5-year-old daughter loves to draw. Like any little brother, my 2-year-old son loves to copy her. And so they can sit there for a nice long while surrounded by paper and crayons, markers, pens and pencils. She drawing and making up her own little books and him scribbling. I’m not a very artistic person, but I do love art. Although my husband doesn’t really draw, he’s been a photographer and videographer for moreRead More ...

Just in time for MLK day and following the Fall 2011 release of the new children’s book, Chocolate Me, I had the opportunity to participate in a bloggers’ panel with actor and author Taye Diggs. Diggs, along with childhood friend Shane Evans, created this autobiographical story about a black boy who feels out of place in a class full of white children. He is preoccupied with his looks until his mother reassures him by telling him that he has “cottonRead More ...

One of the best parts of raising bilingual and bicultural children is that from the get go they are exposed to more than just one culture. Plus, because both my husband and I have family outside the United States, my children have had the opportunity to travel and experience how people live in other countries. So I was intrigued when I saw a set of three books entitled Nuestra Comunidad Global (Our Global Community) on Scholastic’s Club Leo catalog and IRead More ...

   After Papá Noel has come and gone – 12 days later, to be exact – there is another round of celebration yet to arrive. El Día de los Reyes, celebrated in various ways in several Spanish-speaking countries, is the day that commemorates the arrival of the Three Wise Men. Food, letter writing, and parades abound as children wait for them to appear. Because there are so many different Reyes traditions throughout the Latino world, a great way to teachRead More ...

It’s here again…finalmente! The day our kids eagerly await all year: la Navidad. The kids are out of school, overloading their bellies with treats and snooping around the house for presents. While you’re preparing for feasts and family time, remember to take a moment each day to read to your bebés and teach them what Christmas means to you. As with every holiday, we are making the search easy with a list of great bilingual book recommendations from La TienditaRead More ...

Recently, I was asked to join a select group of bloggers as first official members of a program called the Scholastic Parent Circle. As such, I’ll be reviewing one book from Scholastic’s Club Leo selection every month, as well as giving a copy away. I’m pretty excited about this opportunity because I’m always looking for quality and fun books in Spanish and we all know how hard those are to come by. We already have a nice collection of SpanishRead More ...