Bilingual Book Review: Heritage Language Books

My own Pedro, Margarita and Bobby.Photo: Paula Bendfeldt-Diaz all rights reserved.

My children have been enjoying the wonderful bilingual books “Elephants to the Rescue/Elefantes al Rescate”, “Bobby and the Soccer Ball/ Bobby y el Balón de Fútbol” and “A Chocolate Brown Balloon/Un Globo Café Chocolate” from Heritage Language for a few weeks now.  From the moment they arrived we where pleasantly surprised by the superb quality of these beautiful hardcover books with colorful illustrations and fun characters.

The books, very well written in both English and Spanish are all set in a culturally relevant context that lets your child not only learn or reinforce their Spanish or English but also learn about the Latino culture. One language occupies each opposing page, which helps children make sense of the story and read and learn in a natural way.  Each book is accompanied by a CD, which gives you the option to listen to the story in English or Spanish.  The CD has versions in two different speeds for each language, the slower speed is ideal for children who are learning to read or are learning a new language because they can follow along. The narrator does a wonderful job not only with the correct pronunciation and native accent in both languages but also making the narration animated, fun and engaging.

Pedro and Margarita

We’ve had so much fun accompanying the main characters Margarita and her younger brother Pedro, two Latino siblings, who embark in fun family adventures along with their parents, grandparents and Bobby, their dog.  The characters are so easy to relate to.  They remind me of my brother and I growing up in Guatemala and Pedro and Margarita are about the same age as my kids right now. It’s funny but even Bobby the dog, is similar to our dog Sally.  It’s such a great thing for kids to identify with the characters in a book because that is when reading really works it’s magic, when you can set your imagination free and truly feel like you are having the adventure right along with the characters in the book.  My husband and I moved to the United States when our children where very young so they have not been exposed to the Latino culture like my husband and I where growing up in Central America. There are a lot of things we did as children that my kids don’t have an opportunity to do. Along with Pedro, Margarita en their family my children now have the opportunity to visit a coffee plantation (Elephants to the Rescue/Elefantes al Rescate), take a road trip to the big city’s parque central (mains square) to buy balloons or go to a game of soccer along with Pedro and Margarita.

 

Ideal of beginner readers

My daughter is 7 and she just started reading. We are so incredibly proud of her because reading was really hard for her: you see she has autism.  It is very important to find books that young readers find interesting and fun, and this is especially true for children who might have difficulty reading due to a learning disability or other special circumstance.  We are lucky that my daughter loves reading so much but still reading in Spanish is harder for her since she doesn’t get to read in Spanish at school.  Heritage Language’s books are a great resource to any child learning or reinforcing Spanish or English. My daughter loves reading along with the slower version, she is super independent and likes to do everything “all by herself” and this lets her listen to the correct pronunciation of the words as she reads.  She is telling everyone now how she can read in Spanish too!

Each book in the series exposes children to specific language issues and in their website www.heritagelangueage.com you can download translation notes and word and phrase dictionary for each book. Even thought the book says it is intended for children 5-8 years I am sure younger and older children would really enjoy them as well.

We can’t wait to read Pedro and Margarita’s next adventure!!

Elephants to the Rescue / Elefantes al Rescate : Pedro and Margarita take a trip to a coffee plantation along with their grandmother and grandfather, when they get separated some of grandma’s magic helps them get back together.  This book reminded me so much of my childhood.

 

 

Bobby and The Soccer Ball/Bobby y el Balón de Fútbol: Margarita is preparing for her big soccer game at school and even Bobby, the family dog, is excited about it.  Both of my kids love this one and I almost feel it was inspiredon them.

 

 

 A Chocolate Brown Ballon/Un Globo Café Chocolate: In this fun story Pedro and Margarita take a family road trip, visit the city’s parque central (main square) looking for balloons and fin a little bit of magic.  This was my son’s favorite.

 

 

 

 

Disclosure: I  recieved a copy of  Elephants to the Rescue/Elefantes al RescateBobby and the Soccer Ball/ Bobby y el Balón de Fútbol and A Chocolate Brown Balloon/Un Globo Café Chocolate from Heritage Language free so I could read it with my children and review it.  My opinion is sincere and this post was not edited by a third party

Paula Bendfeldt-Diaz

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20 thoughts on “Bilingual Book Review: Heritage Language Books”

  1. Elephants to the Rescue / Elefantes al Rescate is the book we would love. My girls are in love with elephants right now. The the Elefante song in Spanish.

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  2. My daughter is learning in a dual language environment. I am looking for any materials that could help her with this endeavor as Spanish is not our first language. Your website was very interesting to look over and the bilinguial books in the giveaway are perfect for me to work with her in both languages while I try to learn myself.

    Reply
  3. Se ve que los 3 son interesantes me llama la atención tanto el de elefantes como el del globo quizá también sea el favorito de mi bebé “Un Globo Café chocolate” porque tiene varios días que los globos le llaman muchísimo la atención =) y ya empieza a seguir y poner atención a las historias que le contamos.

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  4. I fallow you on FB and Twitter…….I like Pedro and Margarita…..I like it because the book includes the whole family, sometimes it can be hard to find books, Latino books, that include the whole family.

    Reply

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