Merry Banks

I personally thought this book did a wonderful job at merging both the English and Spanish language into one book that will engage all readers. The story's main idea is about a boy's family and how they prepare and celebrate the Christmas (Navidad) holiday. The book does a great job teaching simple Spanish vocabulary words to children that relate to Christmas; its a great introductory book for students that are learning Spanish as well. I would recommend this book to any Spanish teacher to use within their class because it does a great job at using the language while teaching students the Spanish alphabet too. The illustrator does a wonderful job at using multiple colors in the illustrations to engage the readers. The illustrator does a good job at capturing the emotion on all the people's faces that match with the text. The author bolds the Spanish words throughout the book to point out to the readers the words that are in Spanish. I like how the author includes a glossary at the end of the book as an added text feature that can help readers translate the words into Spanish to English while reading the book.… (más)

I really liked this book for a variety of reasons. This is a rhyming book that outlines the preparations for and celebration of the Christmas season, with Spanish words for each letter of the alphabet translated in the glossary. The first thing that made me really enjoy this book was the writing style. I liked how the book was organized in a alphabet format, while at the same time talking about a part of the Christmas holiday that starts with each individual letter. I language of the text had a rhyming aspect and I think that's great for kids reading the book because they can get into a rhythm and read along at a nice pace. The final part of the book that I thought was really cool was the glossary at the end of the book. For each word in Spanish throughout the book, there was a description in English in the glossary. This is great way for kids learning Spanish or English because it has text in both languages.… (más)