I won’t get tired of saying it: there’s a huge lack in the area of bilingual and Spanish board books for the littlest ones in the house — unless of course they’re brought from outside the U.S. Apparently, I’m not the only one who thinks so because Children’s Book Press, one of our favorite multicultural publishing houses, recently announce its plans to start releasing bilingual board books for children ages 0-5.

The first book in their new series is My Colors, My World/Mis colores, mi mundo by Maya Christina Gonzalez. When I saw it was part of Club Leo’s Spring catalog, I immediately jumped at the opportunity to review it. (Coincidentally, several of you suggested I review this book when I asked for suggestions in the first post I wrote announcing my partnership with Scholastic as one of their Mom Blog Friends a couple of weeks ago.)

I’ve been a big fan of Maya and her work ever since I discovered her books at our local library. I got the opportunity to get to know her a little better when I interviewed her for an installment of ReadMe — in which I reviewed her book I Know the River Loves Me — and for a freelance article I worked on last year. She is superb and so is her bold work.

My Colors, My World/Mis colores, mi mundo was originally published as a picture book in 2007. Written and illustrated by Maya, it has won the prestigious Pura Belpré Honor Award for Illustration. Like the title clearly states, this is a journey through Little Maya’s world through color.

My son, Santiago, is learning about two or three words per day. His vocabulary is expanding at an amazing rate, in part, thanks to his older sister. Vanessa likes to climb into her brother’s crib in the morning and “read” to him or get him to repeat words. Just the other day, I heard her (over the baby monitor) trying to get him to repeat the names of the colors. When I walked into Santiago’s room a little while later, I realized she had picked up Maya’s board book — which I had read to them the night before — and she was using it to teach him the names of colors.

I can’t wait to discover all the other bilingual board books that will be published in this new series. Vanessa will be learning to read in a few months and I’d love for her to be able to read board books in Spanish to her little brother.

THE GIVEAWAY

We’re giving away a copy of My Colors, My World/Mis colores, mi mundo. To enter this giveaway, please share with us the name of your favorite bilingual or Spanish board book.

This giveaway ends at midnight EST on Tuesday, May 31, 2011. Entries/Comments that do not follow the submission guidelines will be invalid and automatically deleted. Sorry, just need to keep it fair. Good luck to all!

Check out the Giveaway Rules.

Disclosure: Scholastic provided me with a copy of the book to review. All opinions are my own.