El Chupacabras by Adam Rubin - OPTIONAL

El Chupacabras by Adam Rubin, illustrated by Crash McCreery.  PICTURE BOOK Dial Books for Young Readers, 2018.  $17.  9780399539299  

BUYING ADVISORY: EL (K-3) – OPTIONAL  

AUDIENCE APPEAL: AVERAGE  

Carla lives with her father Hector on a farm with goats.  One night they hear a creepy sound and when they wake in the morning one of the goats has been made into a goat pancake.  Hector proceeds to tell Carla about “el Chupacabras”, or the goat sucker, who attacks goats, not killing them, but makes them flatten out.  Hector goes and gets magic dust from a beautiful flower lady and when he puts the dust on the goats they grow ginormous and start to head for town.  To solve this problem, Hector has to enlist the help of the Chupacabra to flatten the goats down to normal size.  

I wish I could recommend this book on the illustrations alone.  The goats have the funniest facial expressions and the pictures are fantastic.  The story is entertaining and fun, but I found it hard to read the mixture of English and Spanish text.  Within each sentence is a mix of  half English and half Spanish and it repeats itself so that if you cut and paste while reading you can get the whole meaning, but unless you speak Spanish it makes it hard to read aloud.  

C. Peterson   

Quiza algo Hermoso by Isabel F. Campoy - ESSENTIAL

Campoy, F. Isabel and Theresa Howell Quiza algo Hermoso:Como El Arte Transformo un Barrio, illustrated by Rafael Lopez.  PICTURE BOOK.  Houghton Mifflin, 2018.  $18.  9781328904065

It’s great that the story of San Diego’s Urban Art Trail has been translated into Spanish by Campoy herself.  Of course everything remains as fun and vibrant as the original.

EL (K-3) – ESSENTIAL.  Cindy, Library Teacher

El Autobus/ Bus by Chris Demarest- OPTIONAL

Demarest. Chris El Autobus/ Bus. BOARD BOOK. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017. $4.99. 978-0544991149

Take a ride on public city bus and enjoy all the sights and sounds of the city. “Trucks honk, taxis swerve. City park, road curves.” 

This colorful rhyming book will introduce little ones to the sights and sounds on a typical city bus ride. The bilingual story will also help older children learn both English and Spanish translations. The illustrations are unique and fun. 

Pre-K. OPTIONAL. Reviewer: SL.

La Princesa and the Pea by Susan Elya - ADVISABLE

Elya, Susan Middleton La Princesa and the Pea, illustrated by Juana Martinez-Neal. PICTURE BOOK. G.P. Putnam’s Sons (Penguin Random House), 2017. $17. 9780399251566

This retelling of the Princess and the Pea is muy bueno!  The story stays true to the familiar story - princess needs to stay the night, so queen tests to see if she’s a true princess with an unrealistic challenge (pea under 20 mattresses). The twist with this story is that it’s also a spanish primer.

Beginning with a glossary (nice touch, it gave the reader a heads up that there were Spanish words to look for) the simple poetic text replaced important english words with the Spanish - printed in red so you knew they were there.  The illustrations are delightful, colorful and cultural.  This was a fun read.

EL (K-3) - ADVISABLE  Lisa Librarian

El Pez Pucheros by Deborah Diesan - ADVISABLE

Diesen, Deborah El Pez Pucheros, illustrado por Dan Hanna.  FSG (Macmillan), 2008, 2016. 

Pout-Pout fish has a Spanish only reprint.  Its great to see board books available in Spanish.  And who doesn’t love Pout-Pout Fish?

Pre-K/GIFT – ADVISABLE.  Cindy, Library Teacher