Where are the books?

We have lots and lots of books for Nesta to read. Many of the books I bought I found on sale and are not board books. Board books are of course ideal for little hands. I am also a first time mom and didn't think of this when I bought him a pop-up book. When he was about 4-5 months he loved this book, and he still does but around 8-9 months he started ripping the snake's tail, the lion's paw and so on. So now we keep these books in a shelf where he cannot reach them. One of my favorite books One Love by Cedella Marley also has a page missing that I have yet to tape back. It seems he only likes to rip my favorite books. He did the same to his Frida book. He also chewed through La Oruga Muy Hambrienta, luckily I caught him and the caterpillar is fine thank you. 
However, now that he's not really interested in eating his books I've made some board books readily available for him to pull and read whenever he feels like it. I've also bought him books at Goodwill that cost about $1.00 and I won't feel so bad if he destroys them. One of them is his Elmo pop-up book and it is one of those with buttons and music. It is a good book for the car, but of course he has pulled Zoe's leg off already. 

This little crate is in his bedroom on his playmat. In the crate there are books we own, and in the basket there are library books. He mainly pulls from the basket since he's probably sick of the books in the crate. 

This book is in the kitchen, he likes looking at this book especially. I'm not sure why, but he loves taking these books off of the shelf and he actually looks through the Food Lover's Companion and the Mexican Anytime by Rick Bayless.

Books he hasn't ripped yet:)

Where do you keep your baby's books?

Translating on the spot... interpreter training.

It would be my wish that for every book in English we own, we could have it also in Spanish. It is not possible because the choices at B&N are not the best (especially in board books) and I am not a fan of buying books online. However, the Humboldt Park Branch of CPL just opened a little bit over a month ago and I could not be happier. Nesta spends a lot of time there. Today he went there with his dad, and dad reported that they had to leave shortly after getting all their books because Nesta kept going up to random people and screaming at them. I wonder what he said to them? I'm sure they wonder too.
Our library rules are as follow:
- Have fun!
- Get an equal number of books in English and Spanish.
- Get board books.
- Walk around, play with puzzles and make new friends.
- Read non-board books.
- Return books, renew books, check out new books.
I'm a book hoard, I have 15 books checked out right now. However, we have to have some in English and some in Spanish. Thankfully, there are bilingual books. Bilingual books usually not story books. They're the books that have one word with a picture. I am sure there are bilingual books that are stories but so far I've only seen one and I can't remember the title. It had something with sitting on mom's lap. 
Sometimes Nesta really attaches to a book in English. He brings it over and hands it to me, then sits on my lap and is ready to hear the book read. The first book in English that he really enjoyed was Where The Wild Things Are, luckily we had that one in Spanish. The next one he liked was Where's Spot? This book has flaps for Nesta to lift and find Spot. This book was the first book that I was translating on the spot (ha!) This book is very easy to translate. Each page is one sentence asking if Spot is under the stairs or piano etc. The next book was a bit more challenging. He really liked Color Kittens and this book is mainly read by dad. Dad does a really good job of reading this book, and Nesta enjoys it. However, one day dad was at work and the book was brought to me. This book is long, and it has paragraphs that rhyme. It's a cool book because it shows what colors can be mixed to get other colors like green, purple or brown. Because of all the rhyming I could not sit there and translate every single thing. At this point I just decided to shorten the story. I got to the point and took away some of the rhyming because as much as I translated literally it did not make sense, and it wasn't rhyming anyway. When dad heard me translating the book to Nesta he was appalled! He said "but that's the best part with the poem." I fully agreed with him, but I just couldn't do it justice in Spanish and so he took the book and read it to Nesta. I don't read in English to Nesta. Our one rule is that I speak in Spanish (or read) and dad speaks in English and reads the books in English. So, I will continue to translate books he likes to Spanish to keep up with that rule. I don't know if this is the right thing to do or not, but he doesn't seem to notice the difference. As long as his favorite book is being read to him he's happy. We've been lucky that many of the books he likes are bilingual. These are the books that are very simple, and he mainly likes that the pictures in the books are real pictures (not cartoonish). He also can't sit still to very long books. Color Kittens is probably the longest book he's been into. 
My rules for translating books:
-Translate literally as long as it makes sense.
- If the literal translation doesn't make sense, translate the main idea.
- Always translate it the same way (post its come in handy).
-Read the full sentence before translating.
I've taken Nesta to Story Time in Spanish and I noticed that some of the books they use for story time are in English, and the instructor translates on the spot as well. I think I can get away with doing this for a few more years until we start teaching him how to read. Hopefully by then he'll know when he's expected to speak Spanish and when he's expected to speak English so that I can also teach him to read in English.

Some cool bilingual books that we like are: Ruedas, ruedas a rodar/Wheels, wheels let's roll, Insectos/Bugs, Asi me siento/This Is How I feel, Casa/Home, Crias de animales/Baby Animals, Los germenes no son para compartir/Germs Are Not For Sharing, Mi mama me quiere porque.../My mom loves me because.
Some books in Spanish we like: Un dia ajetreado, Las lechucitas, Buenas noches a todos, Adivina cuanto te quiero?

Of course when it comes to books I have my favorites, and so does everyone else. One good thing is that lately Nesta has been more open to reading new books. He still misses his old books sometimes though. The adults in the house are the ones who get sick of reading the same books, so we're the ones who go to the library and get a bunch of new ones. Nesta doesn't get that yet. At first we would be too excited and we would want to read all the new library books in one night, until one night when Nesta had had it with the new books and went to the book shelf and got two of his old books and showed him to his dad. POINT TAKEN KID! Now we mix the books we own with the library books. Duh! 
Something else that is fun is how he now loves to read during the day. It isn't just a night time routine anymore. Yes I do get sick of reading Ruedas, ruedas a rodar ten times, but I also love that he wakes up in the morning and goes looking for a book. He looks at his books throughout the day, and sometimes you can hear him 'reading.' It's super cute. I just hope this book loving lasts forever!

Libros para niños en español

When I was pregnant the one thing I wanted to buy for my unborn child the most was books. Let me first say that I'm a nerd. I love books. I love to read, and reread. I love it all. My top five books are:

• To Kill A Mockingbird.
• The God Of Small Things.
• One Hundred Years Of Solitude (in Spanish).
• The Hummingbird's Daugther (In Spanish).
• Of Love And Other Demons (In Spanish).

The list constantly changes. So, you see how important reading is to me. There are benefits to reading and that's why we should ALL read ALOUD to our children. I could go on about the benefits, and how this will help them in school blah blah blah. Yes, that's great, but for me reading is more than that. Reading is a way to let my imagination go wild. Reading is a way for me to fly away and experience new things that I may never experience in my life time. I get to feel what it is like to see a train for the first time like in One Hundred Years of Solitude. I get to feel the magic that seeps out of Teresita in The Hummingbird's Daughter.  This is what I want my son to feel when he reads. It will benefit him in great ways, but I also want him to read a book and live the book. I want him to appreciate literature. Honestly I want him to love reading as much as I do. If he doesn't love reading as much as I do, at least I hope that he can read in English and Spanish ha!

To prepare him for that I started picking up books that were either bilingual or in Spanish. Obviously there is not as much variety in Spanish, but I found some good ones. His favorites are:

• Cuaquito  (the story of a little duck who is afraid to go in the water).
• La Oruga Muy Hambrienta (The Very Hungry Caterpillar).
• Los Pollitos Dicen (Bilingual).
• No Llores Chiquitin   (the story of a baby who cries because he needs to burp).
• Buenas Noches a Todos   (bed time routine book).
• 8 Monitos (8 Little Monkeys).
• Donde Viven Los Monstruos (Where the WIld Things Are).
• ¿Dónde Esta El Ombliguito?

We have many more books that may be some of my favorite's or dad's favorites but maybe not Nesta's favorites, yet. 

Because there are more books in English than in Spanish I sometimes translate as I read. I really like Good Night Moon,  and I know there is one in Spanish, but I couldn't find it. So I translated it and put little post-its on it so that I can be consistent in my translation. Some books are so simple that it is easy to translate. One book I translate is Animal Talk which was a gift by his cousin Jack. It is just pictures of animals with the sound they make plus a question like "What does the happy chimp say?" This book is easy for me to translate, as well as the book Where's Spot?

I will not translate all the time. At some point I will start teaching him to read, and at that point I will just have to read him books in Spanish. I don't know if translating books is a good idea or not. I started without really planning it. It seemed he was getting sick of La Oruga Muy Hambrienta and Cuaquito so I picked up a book in English and started reading it to him. He did not like that I was reading in English. He kept swatting at the book, and trying to close it. I started translating the book and he stared at me for a minute. I continued with the translation and he sat and listened. I thought it was weird that he didn't like me reading in English. His dad reads to him in English and he seats through it just fine. Well, since that day I read to him in Spanish only.

If you find any awesome books in Spanish that you think a 1 year old will enjoy it, please send me the title :)