Ayudo

December 1, 2023

K-Gr 2-Awarded children's author and illustrator Cepeda offers two Spanish-language easy reader books from the "Me Gusta Leer" (I Like To Read) collection. In Ayudo (I Like to Help), a young boy finds a canteen that he uses thoughtfully to fill a dog's water bowl and a bird's fountain and to help a thirsty mailman. When the water is gone, a neighbor refills the canteen again, paving the way for the characters to enjoy refresh ing lemonade. In the Spanish translation of the 2022 Theodor Seuss Geisel Honor book I Hop, the boy finds a pogo stick to jump around town, where he buys cheese, apples, and bread that he takes to his grandmother's house. Both titles have no more than one line per page, often only one word, highlighting the simple stories that rely on present tense verbs in the first-person, forming a perfect grammatical environment to learn a few controlled vocabulary words connected to these verbs. As a unifying feature, the two stories begin with the boy finding something. The bucolic illustrations offer pictorial clues that will help readers decode the narrative, emphasizing the characters' expressions of content as community members and as they interact with the main character, who has brown skin. The essence of these books is about being a part of a community and finding happiness in simple but meaningful tasks. VERDICT Add to all Spanish-language early reader collections.-Kathia Ibacache

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