Rhyme Time en Español

Serving on the 2013 Pura Belpré award committee was easily one of the greatest honors I have experienced thus far in my career.  However, now that my term is over and our winners were selected, I am thrilled to be able to blog about books again!

Yanitzia Canetti has been on my radar for a long time due to her excellent translation work.  I have always been particularly impressed by how well she maintains rhyme, making changes to literal content when necessary in order to preserve the context, rhythm and intention of the story.  Some examples include La llama llama rojo pijama, Cerdota grandota,and Cha-cha-cha en la selva.  So I am especially thrilled that she has recently published her own book of Spanish children's rhymes, Uno, Dos, Tres: My First Spanish Rhymes.

This title presents dozens of Spanish rhymes organized by topic, such as "Let's Travel / A pasear" and "Let's Play / A jugar."  The rhymes are all in Spanish, but the end pages in the back provides some explanation and English translation.  The title also contains a CD so you can hear the rhymes in addition to reading them.  I know for me this is always useful, as I like to use traditional rhymes in my storytime programs but did not grow up speaking Spanish, so I'm always looking to learn new rhymes that will resonate with the families I serve.  The rhymes aren't titled in the book, which makes their presentation at times a little unclear.  I also wish that the notes at the end included information about in which countries the various rhymes are common. Overall, however, this is an excellent title, a must-have for libraries and definitely one that any librarian offering Spanish/bilingual storytimes and/or serving Spanish-speaking families should know.