2009 Pura Belpré Award Winners

The 2009 Pura Belpré Awards were announced on Monday. In honor of that occasion, we’ve added a special section in our on-line bookstore that lists this year’s winners, as well as all previous winners of this special award. Just click on our store image in the sidebar and then click on the Pura Belpré category.
This year’s winners include the following books:

Author Award

The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba's Struggle for Freedom
by Margarita Engle

It is 1896. Cuba has fought three wars for independence and still is not tree. People have been rounded up in reconcentration camps with too little food and too much illness. Rosa is a nurse, but she dares not go to the camps. So she turns hidden caves into hospitals for those who know how to find her.

Illustrator Award

Just In Case: A Trickster Tale and Spanish Alphabet Book
illustrated and written by Yuyi Morales

Yuyi Morales takes us on a new journey with Señor Calvera, the skeleton from Day of the Dead celebrations. Señor Calvera is worried. He can’t figure out what to give Grandma Beetle for her birthday. Misunderstanding the advice of Zelmiro the Ghost, Señor Calvera decides not to get her one gift, but instead one gift for every letter of the alphabet, just in case. Una Acordéon: An accordion for her to dance to. Bigotes: A mustache because she has none. Cosquillas: Tickles to make her laugh…only to find out at the end of the alphabet that the best gift of all is seeing her friends. Morales’s art glows in this heart-warming original tale with folklore themes, a companion book to her Pura Belpré-winning JUST A MINUTE.

Author Honor Books

Just In Case: A Trickster Tale and Spanish Alphabet Book
illustrated and written by Yuyi Morales

Reaching Out
by Francisco Jiménez

The Storyteller’s Candle / La Velita de los Cuentos
written by Lucía González, illustrated by Lulu Delacre

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Illustrator Honor Books

Papá and Me
illustrated by Rudy Gutierrez, written by Arthur Dorros

The Storyteller’s Candle / La Velita de los Cuentos
written by Lucía González, illustrated by Lulu Delacre

What Can You Do With a Rebozo?
illustrated by Amy Córdova, written by Carmen Tafolla

Seeking Nominations for the 2009 International Latino Book Awards

Hi, Everyone.

Just a quick post to let you know that nominations are now being accepted for the 2009 International Latino Book Awards. They'll be presented at on May 28th, during BookExpo America in New York. They've added four new cateogories to this year's awards - Best Young Adult Sports/Recreation (A11 & A12), Best Gift Book (B19 & B20), a general fiction category, Best Popular Fiction (C37 & C38) and Best Graphic Novel (C47 & C48). All nominations must have a 2008 publication date.

If you'd like more information, or to download their nomination forms (available in both Eng & Span,) click here.

For Your Reyes y Reinas: Kevin Henkes's Julius, el rey de la casa

Our "big" kids were not actually all that big when their baby sister came home.  But, we tried to talk to them about the upcoming addition to our family anyway.  And, we read to them, of course!  

Kevin Henkes's book Julius el rey de la casa is the Spanish translation of the original Julius, the King of the House.  I had never heard of the English version before buying Julius, el rey de la casa, and the translation was so seemless, I didn't even imagine it could have been written in anything other than espanol.  

Julius, el rey de la casa tells the story of Lily, a little mouse whose routines are disrupted when her baby brother is born: she has to be quieter, share her parents, share her toys and her room.  While her parents go on and on about how perfect Julius is (as perfect as she was when she was first born, they add), Lily thinks Julius is asqueroso!  But when the family throws Julius a party and a cousin regards him with less than enthusiasm,  Lily stands up for him and realizes the special place Julius holds in her life.

Our kids loved the illustrations, and the funny, true-to-life story, and the silly exigente voice with which mami read the Lily's voice.   I credit this book with making our transition to family of 5 easier and with helping to form our big kids' love and loyalty to their baby sister, even before they met her.  

Kevin Henkes's Julius, el rey de la casa is a title older kids (6 and up) could read themselves, and younger ones would enjoy hearing out loud.  It would also make a super gift for an older hermanito or hermanita to-be at a baby shower.

Reading with your child

By Christianne Meneses Jacobs

When you read a book with your child, you are modeling what good readers do and what reading sounds like. Reading is an activity that you can do anywhere at any time. You can enjoy reading at home, the park, the library, the bus, the train, the car, a comfy couch and the bed.
Early readers, which are books designed for young children that are learning to read, are divided into levels from 1 to 4: 1 pre-reader, 2 emergent reader, 3 developing reader and 4 independent reader.

Pre-reader and emergent reader books are very important for very young children because they introduce concepts of print (reading left to right, letter/sound correspondence), vocabulary and decoding skills that are necessary to become a successful reader. When using these books follow these recommendations:

Talk about each picture before you read,

Make some predictions and inferences by thinking out loud,

Read the book to your child,

When reading, point to the words and stop to talk about the meaning of the words,

Your child begins to associate the sound with the letter it represents,

Let your child read the story back when he/she is familiar with it,

Allow your child to make mistakes and self-correct,

Praise your child’s reading abilities

Enjoy the time you are spending together.

Benito's Dream Bottle by Naomi Shihab Nye

So we have stumbled upon this beautiful little book by Naomi Shihab Nye. It caught my eye because of the author’s name. Some of you may recall Violeta’s review on Nye’s The Tree is Older than You Are. Anyway, we found Benito’s Dream Bottle on my daughter’s bookshelf and we’ve no real idea where it came from. Probably one of our foraging trips to Half Price Bookstore back in TX. I say this because it does not look new, but well loved! By whom, I wonder?

But, oh, how we do love it now! This book is written in English, no Spanish at all, but as the LBBC reviews books that are both bilingual and bicultural, this book fits in nicely. The story is about Benito, a young boy who is intrigued by dreams – who has them and where do they come from? He becomes terribly distraught when his grandmother tells him that she hasn’t dreamt in a long time. He then sets out to help her “get better” and dream again.

The imagery that Nye uses is wonderful! How I so wish that I had dreams like the ones described in the book. And the ideas she presents as to where dreams come from – they are so beautiful and clever! Although they are accompanied by fluid and lively illustrations by Yu Cha Pak, Nye’s descriptions are so vivid that my daughter would love this story even if there weren’t any pictures in it.

Here’s a little taste…

“At night, when his mother bent her head to kiss him, her braid tickled his face. Shadows from the pecan trees made spooky moving fingers on his bed. Benito would think of all his favorite questions: Does dust have wings? How much does a fingernail weigh? How long does a kiss stick to a cheek? The bottle tipped, and the dreams made pools and lakes and rivers inside his head. He could dip his toes in – he could float and swim…”

Another thing I like about the book is how it conveys the closeness of Benito's family, and most especially his relationship with his grandmother. Certainly a beautiful story that I do highly recommend for all families – Latino and non-Latino.

If you would like to buy your own copy of Benito’s Dream Bottle, please click here. Or you can follow the link in our sidebar to the LBBC’s on-line store. We have both new and gently used copies available.

January's Winners

Hooray! Two winners again! I don't think any of the previous winners participated, so it was nice to see mostly new names. I knew ya'll were out there. Anyway, it was back to the magic salsa bowl again, but this time ya'll may have noticed that it is a different one - a super Christmas present!

So, congratulations to...Kaycee and Meredith! If you guys will contact me (admin at latinbabyusa.com) with your mailing address, I'll get these out this week.

Thank all of you for participating and we hope you'll do so again next month!

Stay warm...and remember if you gotta fly, VIVA US AIR!!!!

Es un milagro, no?

January's Giveaway!

Just a little housekeeping before announcing this month’s giveaway. In case you haven’t noticed, I have added a few new links in the sidebar, including one to the current Pura Belpré Medal Winners. If you’d like to see all of the past winners, just click on it and then select "Past Belpré Winners."

The LBBC is continuing to grow in readership, but we’d like your help anyway in spreading the word about us. One way that you might do so is by becoming a fan on our Facebook page. Simply click on the link in our sidebar. Give us a good review while you’re at it?

Another way is to just tell all your familia y amigos to check us out. Tell them about our monthly giveaways, and all the super book reviews and author interviews we do.

Do you have a blog? Link back to us! We appreciate the support.

On the topic of Latino literature (both for children and adults), Adriana Dominguez, former Executive Editor of HarperCollins Children’s Books, has written an interesting post on her new blog, Voces. In it, she discusses the great year that Latino literature enjoyed in 2008 while reminding us of all the work that still lies before us. I strongly encourage you to check it out here.

And now, on to the giveaway!

So once again, I’m going to giveaway a book to two lucky readers. We need to kick off the New Year on a good note, no?

The first book is a simple, light-hearted, bilingual book titled, Marco Flamingo/Marco Flamenco by Sheila Jarkins. It is mostly a picture book with a very cute little story line about a flamingo who wonders what snow is after listening to the stories of all his "snowbird" friends. He keeps asking, and asking, but finally decides to fly north for the winter to experience it himself. The illustrations are funny and will make your niños giggle. The book is written in English with full text in Spanish.

The second book is Marta y la bicicleta by Germano Zullo. It is published by Kane/Miller, who, as you may remember from an earlier post, carefully selects literature from around the world and translates it into English or, as in this case, Spanish. The text in Marta is definitely more advanced, not necessarily for beginners, but I do like these because even if my children don’t understand it all, the stories help to develop my children’s ear for the language (pronunciation, emphasis, etc.)

Originally from Switzerland, Marta is about an unusual cow that doesn’t fit in with the other cows in her herd. For starters, she is anaranjada, instead of black and white like the others. And while all the other cows are intrigued with trains, Marta finds the big machines too noisy. Then one day, a bicycle race happens to go through town…

So to win one of these books, just leave us a comment below. You have until midnight on Thursday. I’ll announce the winner sometime on Friday the 16th. In fact, you can increase your chances of winning, by writing about or linking to the LBBC on your blog and letting us know in the comments section. I’ll check it out, and if indeed you have a link to us/post about us, I’ll enter your name TWICE into the official magic salsa bowl.

¡Buenas suerte a todos!

New Year's Resolution: Read!

Happy New Year! If you're looking for ways to encourage reading in the New Year, some of these resources from Colorín Colorado may be useful:

Parent Tip Sheets

Colorín Colorado's parent tip sheets offer lots of ideas for making reading an important part of each day:

•Start the New Year Off Right: Resolve to Raise a Reader! (also available in Spanish)

•Reading Tip Sheets for Parents in 11 languages

The Snowman and Other Wordless Books

A classic book for January is The Snowman by Raymond Briggs. This book has no text; the story is told through its beautiful illustrations. Such books offer parents and children a chance to make up a story together based on illustrations, and can spark children's imaginations in magical ways. They also provide a nice option for parents who don't speak English or feel comfortable reading out loud to their children.

Colorín Colorado offers ideas for activities that parents can use with wordless books in A Picture's Worth a Thousand Words (also available in Spanish). For more suggestions of other titles, take a look at this booklist.

Winter and the White House

If you'd like some other ideas of winter tales for children, check out the Reading Rockets' Let It Snow booklist! You'll find books of fact and fiction as well as favorites both old and new.

Finally, for those of you gearing up for the Presidential Inauguration, check out the great selections in the Reading Rockets' Inside the White House booklist. From White House pets to the adventures of some of the youngest members of past Presidential families, these books are sure to be a hit!

All the best for a happy and healthy New Year from Colorín Colorado, and happy reading!

January's Libro del Mes: Mamá Goose

Mamá Goose:
A Latino Nursery Treasury
Written by Alma Flor Ada and F. Isabel Campoy
Illustrated by Maribel Suárez

The LBBC’s recommendation for January’s Libro del Mes, is Alma Flor Ada's Mamá Goose: A Latino Nursery Treasury/Un Tesoro de Rimas Infantiles.

We decided to start the year off right with the bilingual children’s book that ALL Latino families must have. Mamá Goose is the most comprehensive collection of nursery rhymes, lullabies, riddles, proverbs, folklore, and even villancicos that is available in the U.S.

This book certainly is un tesoro, without question. It is my favorite of all the children’s books (bilingual and otherwise) that I have ever read to my children. It is rich with the warmth of Latino culture, full of humor and sweetness, and an excellent portrayal of the diversity of the Spanish-speaking world. Some of the passages that have been chosen are familiar in many countries throughout Latin America, though various versions exist. A few of the selections included are: El Paseíto de Oro/The Golden Path; Agua, San Marcos/Water Saint Marcus; Los Cinco Hermanitos/Five Little Brothers, and ¡Qué Linda está la Mañana!/How Beautiful is this Special Day. I counted 87 different passages, written completely both in Spanish and English. I especially appreciate the fact that the translations are not literal, but rather – like all truly professional interpretations – portray the sentiment and rhythm of the original.

How beautiful is this little excerpt of un villancico andino/an Andean carol with its English translation?

Señora Doña María
Deje acercarme un poquito
Y sin despertar al niño
Besarle los piececitos.

Dear Lady María,
Allow me to get close,
And without waking the babe,
Kiss his sweet toes!

Señora Doña María
Cogollito de alhelí
Encárguele a su niñito
Que no se olvide de mí.

Dear Lady María,
Heart of a beautiful flower,
Please ask your blessed baby
To remember me each hour.

And, oh, the illustrations! To say they are lovely is an understatement. Maribel Suárez fills the book with watercolor images of children, their parents and their environment. She subtly reveals the variety of cultures through little details such as clothing, architecture and toys.

If you would like to buy your own copy of Mamá Goose, please click here. Or you can follow the link in our sidebar to the LBBC’s on-line store. We have both new and gently used copies available.

¡Prospero Año Nuevo!

Happy New Year from all of us at the LBBC!

May the new year bring you all peace, happiness, good health and prosperity.