spanish books – Acento Learning

In our last blog entry, we defined what an authentic book in Spanish is and we offered some alternatives to find these books in the US. Now, an authentic book is not synonymous with a great book. Even though it’s wonderful that it was written in Spanish first, we still have to evaluate its quality and determine its place in our classrooms.

Some authentic books in Spanish are fantastic, necessary and unforgettable while others are… average. As teachers, we take a glance at a book and in less than a minute we have an almost visceral and assertive assessment about how good it is. However, the following questions can really help us fine tune our critical eye and determine what place we give to each book in our classroom and in our heart:

It the book relevant to our content? Often our bookshelves resemble our closets! Just as we have lots of clothes on hangers and somehow “nothing to wear,” we also have lots of books and “nothing to read to our kids” relevant to the content we are teaching them. It’s such a success when we find an authentic book in Spanish that is at the heart of a teaching point.
Is the language and message of the story aligned with my school’s social-emotional culture? Authentic books are like windows for our students to peek through and see the colors and flavors of hispanic cultures. However, there are some authentic books that can be considered “edgy” in our school contexts. Such as, for example, the Mexican bestseller La peor señora del mundo by Francisco Hinojosa. As a rule of thumb, if we are shocked by the content of a book or have doubts about its place in our classrooms, we should at least take it to our school’s administration and request their take/approval on the title.
How much “front loading” should I employ for my students to access the vocabulary and/or context of this book? Some authentic books are extremely tied to their regional or local contexts, as is the case of La calle es libre or Imágenes de Barquisimeto; books that we can personally adore, but whose stories are born from local contexts. These types of books can have a place in our classrooms but they need to be very well contextualized for our students to gain significant meaning from them.
And lastly, am I emotionally connected with this book? Even if a title passes the previous three questions, we may still not feel emotionally tied to it and write it off. In this case, remember that our kids’ reading tastes are diverse and it is possible that this title may still find its way into a student’s heart. On the other hand, if we love a book, we can work hard to find connections with our instruction. Reading a book that we love to our kids is magical!

As we can see, determining the quality of an authentic book and finding its ideal spot in our classrooms is hard work. That is why America Reads Spanish (ARS), an initiative aimed to increase the use and reading of our language in the US, is supporting this effort. In collaboration with Fundación Germán Sánchez Ruipérez – specialists in Hispanic literature – ARS has created an essential guide to Spanish reading for children and young adults. This list includes: the title, ISBN code, publishing house, reader’s age and summary of over 400 titles!

Here is the guide, enjoy!

Lastly, we’d like to share some of OUR favorite authentic books in Spanish! These classics have accompanied us for years, elevating the status of Spanish in our primary classrooms and creating a strong Hispanic cultural connection.

In general, when evaluating an authentic book in Spanish, consider all you know about your students, the questions above and your educator’s gut. And remember, you already have an excellent critical eye! So tell us, what are your favorite authentic books in Spanish?!

Con cariño,

In our last blog post, we discussed how to motivate children to speak in Spanish and balance the language inequity between English and Spanish in dual language programs. This time, we’ll tackle another big challenge: how to address the absence of authentic Spanish texts in our classrooms.

But first, what is an authentic book in Spanish?

To start off, it’s important to define what we mean by “authentic” in this context. We believe that beyond a book being written by a hispanic author or with traditional folklore or historic content, an authentic book in Spanish is a book that was written first in Spanish with a Spanish-speaking audience in mind.

Why are these books important for in-Spanish classrooms?

From a very technical perspective, when a book is written in the language in which it is intended to be read, the author has total freedom to use a wealth of words to fit his ideas without compromising the message of the story. For this same reason, when we write these blog posts, we write them in Spanish first. We know that Spanish is our audience’s dominant language, thus we think through the content in Spanish first to better communicate our ideas.

From a more cultural perspective, authentic texts in Spanish carry settings, expressions, slang and ideas that provide readers with a sense of place and belonging. For those of us who teach in Spanish in the US, these texts are powerful tools in supporting the cultural immersion that we want to create in our classrooms; since we cannot use our outside environment as a consistent model for Spanish language or culture. Furthermore, these books serve as windows into the cultures that we want our students to identify with and become immersed in. Either way, the acknowledgement of these cultural nuances, brought to our classrooms via authentic texts, validate and highlight the importance of Spanish in a realistic context.

So, how do we get our hands on authentic texts?

Understanding that we could go on and on about why these books are critical to our programs and inviting you to carry on providing reasons, we want to go ahead and offer a few ways in which you can satisfy this need in your classroom.

Option #1: The Big Players

In the United States, there are many book distributors that carry titles in Spanish. However, we believe that the big players in providing authentic texts in Spanish are Fondo de Cultura Económica and Lectorum. The former is a real giant in Latin America, particularly in Mexico, where one can find their enormous bookstores in almost every city. In addition, they have bookstores in Washington, DC and San Diego. You can contact their offices directly to get recommendations about authentic texts, shop from their catalog and even coordinate a books fair for your school with just Spanish books!

Option #2: Busy Bee Search

For the US market, Amazon has increased its text offerings from Hispanic publishing companies, and therefore, increased its selection of authentic books in Spanish. The challenge is how to find these books, and we say challenge because it is not an impossible task and can be easily achieved by working through Amazon’s search filters. Here is our formula:

Once you are in the Amazon website click on “Shop by Department”and then on “Books”.
From there, click on the option that says “Advanced Search”
Now here is the most important step, in the book search fields, make sure that these are set: Subject: “Children’s Books”, Language: “Spanish” and select the Reader Age you are looking for. Then, under Publisher, write the name of a Hispanic publishing company. And yes, you have to go through each publisher one by one. That’s why we call refer to this option as a busy bee search! It’s pretty labor intensive!
If you don’t know the names of any Hispanic publishers, we are offering you here two juicy lists to keep you busy for a long while: Spanish and Latin American publishing companies!

As you carry on this search, you’ll become familiar with the publishers and their products. This laborious task will get a lot quicker and you will be incredibly proud of all of your newfound knowledge about these publishers!

Option #3: Trip to the Bookstore in Latin America or Spain

Another alternative to obtain authentic texts is to reach out to family members and friends who are taking a trip to Latin America or Spain, and kindly ask to pick up authentic books at the local bookstore!

Even though, at first, this option may seem unsustainable, we know plenty of in-Spanish teachers who have made this practice a habit and currently have enormous collections of authentic texts in their classrooms.

When it comes to purchasing books for your classroom, we realize that not everything is under your control. However, in your school, before the approval of next year’s budget, make sure that the point person in charge of purchases has access to this information, and levers the purchase of authentic texts for Spanish classrooms.

We hope that these options help you fill your classroom library with authentic texts in Spanish, supporting our battle against language inequity. If you have other ideas about how to get authentic texts in your bookshelves, please share them in our comments section below y ¡que viva nuestro amor por el español!

Con cariño,

Posts

High-Quality & Authentic Spanish Books

Authentic Books in Spanish