Long-winded way to talk about our favorite Spanish books
It took eight years to convince my husband to have a child. When we would talk about this maybe baby and I would argue it would bring us “comic relief’’ he would say this child of ours – if and when he consented — would have to behave, not watch TV and speak Spanish. (We’re batting 1 out of 3). So, it really has been at my husband’s encouragement that we make Spanish a focus. Credit where credit is due. It would be very easy to slip into whatever-ville if he were not here to support the effort.
So, when pregnancy finally happened – just weeks prior to the tenth year of our marriage – we started asking bilingual friends in
The guy friend – a tall and imposing figure – also said he makes his children repeat in Spanish whatever they say to him in English.
“They eventually figure ‘Oh, this guy is going to make me repeat myself, so I might as well just say it in Spanish first and get it over with,’’’ he explained.
I have chosen not to force the Spanish in that way. I am not big and imposing and honestly, my kid is too hard-headed for that.
But, the point of this post, is to say good Spanish baby books have been a godsend. Gracias, Amazon! Somehow we discovered books for tiny babies like this one, which I have read to Maria since she was barely human. Even then, she loved looking at the pictures of other babies.
As she got a little bigger we started using the fabulous My First Spanish Word Book by DK Publishing and though she is now 3, we still read these books. They support our vocabulary. I say “our’’ because I learn new words right along with her. (Other favorites here and here.)
All this is on my mind because there’s a little half-Cuban 4-month-old in
If you have some favorite Spanish kid books to list, I’d love to know.
“The Giving Tree” is availabe in Spanish, and that is such a beautiful book…a great gift!
I have “Los Zapaticos de Rosa” in hardback. Isn’t it some kind of federal mandate that all Cubans must be able to recite this by heart? =D
Here’s the amazon link:
http://www.amazon.com/Los-zapaticos-Rosa-Jose-Marti/dp/1880507331/sr=8-1/qid=1164699104/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-6407079-0590426?ie=UTF8&s=books