The Very Lonely Firefly / La luciérnaga muy solitaria. By Eric Carle. Penguin Random House. $11.99.
Baby Ballena. By Ben Gundersheimer. Illustrated by Marcos Almada Rivero. Nancy Paulsen Books/Penguin Random House. $18.99.
Crocodiles Everywhere / Cocodrilos por Todos Lados. By Estelí Meza. Rocky Pond Books/Penguin Random House. $18.99.
Oscar Wilde’s famous remark about England and the United States, that “we have really everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, language,” rings true in a different way – and one nowadays sometimes laced with animosity – when it comes to the primary language spoken by people within the U.S. Whatever the merits of deeming English (that is, American English) the official or at least standard language of communication within the nation, the fact is that Spanish is the primary language for about 15% of Americans – and that percentage is far higher in some areas of the country. It certainly makes sense, in terms of fostering neighborliness (if that is not too outmoded a notion), for English speakers to know at least a little Spanish, and the earlier in life people familiarize themselves with that language, the more comfortable they will be with hearing and speaking it. And of course it is eminently sensible for Spanish speakers in the U.S. to be able to communicate, to at least some degree, in English.
The ideal time for initial exposure to a new language is childhood, and Penguin Random House has a whole slew of first-rate kids’ books that parents can use to entertain children while giving them a chance to see English and Spanish narratives in juxtaposition. Eric Carle’s 1999 The Very Lonely Firefly, for example, is available as an English/Spanish board book that is ideal for the youngest readers and for pre-readers. In fact, it is also a good way for English-speaking adults to immerse themselves in Carle’s world in bilingual form. The board book contains the entire original Carle text and illustrations – the story of a newborn firefly searching for others of its kind by flashing its light, only to find again and again that the lights it sees are not those of other fireflies after all. Carle’s gentle humor pervades the text and illustrations as la luciérnaga flits along, encountering a lightbulb (un bombillo) and a candle (una vela), a flashlight (una linterna) and a lantern (un farol), and more. In this board book, the text in Spanish appears first on each page, with the English text in identical format and spacing below, so kids can compare the story word-by-word if they wish. There are even dual-language dog bow-wows (¡Guau, guau!), an owl hoot (¡UUU!), and other sounds. Eventually, after encountering fireworks – an especially charming Carle illustration – the firefly sees lights just like its own, joins a group of other fireflies, and is no longer lonely. The simple, charming tale is equally effective in English and Spanish – a fact that the board book makes very clear indeed.
Books for older children work equally well in dual-language format. The hardcover Baby Ballena gets a cover, wraparound book jacket, and flap notes only in English, but the text of the story is presented entirely in bilingual form. This Ben Gundersheimer book is an ecologically focused tale about gray whales, told through the eyes of newborn whale baby Juana – who, as is explained in both English and Spanish, is as big as a boat even when just one day old, and drinks 50 gallons of milk a day to grow even bigger and stronger. As usual in nature-focused books for kids, the animals are anthropomorphized as to thoughts and to some extent appearance in the illustrations by Marcos Almada Rivero, although their basic shapes and the environments they encounter as they make their way from Mexico (where Juana is born) to Alaska (where the pod spends the summer) are depicted with reasonable accuracy. The realities of whale migration are explained in simple but, again, accurate fashion: “We have to be careful of big ships, fishing nets and orcas” appears just below “Debemos tener cuidado con los barcos, las redes de pescar y las orcas.” The careful text layout makes following the narrative in either language, or both together, very simple and straightforward, and the personable elements of the whales’ lives come through to good effect: “I can eat a thousand shrimp. Good thing I have a big mouth!” That is, “Puedo comer miles de camarones. ¡Por suerte tengo una boca grande!” Other animals that make incidental appearances in the whales’ story are rendered with equal charm, and the tale ends suitably when Juana is one year old, has migrated back from Alaska to Mexico, and is meeting newborn cousin José – thus, the cycle continues. Taking the book as a whole, there is more English than Spanish, including an Author’s Note that is English-only. But having the story appear in both languages is what matters here: that is what takes young readers on a two-language journey as well as the narrative one on which they accompany the whales.
The journey is inward rather than across a vast geographical area in Crocodiles Everywhere, and the dual-language approach works equally well. The book’s title may initially make adults think of Wanda Gág’s wonderful 1928 Millions of Cats, but in fact the “everywhere” here does not mean crocs are all over the place: there are only two of them. But those two are ubiquitous in the life of the little girl who narrates the story, which begins with heartbreak on “one terrible day” (un día terrible) when her very best friend, Ana, moves to another city. The girl misses Ana a lot, so much that the days feel endless (interminables), and nothing in life seems the same anymore. Then the crocodiles show up: a gray one that “would weep for hours” (lloraba por horas) and a loud one that constantly causes chaos. Once the crocs appear, they are with the little girl all the time, and although nobody else can see them, we do see her worried mother looking at the girl with concern in some of the illustrations. Even the family vacation is spoiled for the girl by the ever-present reptiles, which by now young readers will know to be imaginary or some sort of invisible-to-everyone-else fairy-tale creatures. The turning point of the story is the girl’s decision to talk to the gray crocodile: “He told me his name was Sadness” (Él me dijo que su nombre era Tristeza). Not wanting the croc to be sad, the little girl hugs him, and soon they are both crying a river of tears – deeply felt ones, not the “crocodile tears” said to be insincere – until both of them feel better. Then the girl talks to the loud crocodile, whose name turns out to be Anger (Enojo). And the two of them scream together – the illustration of the dual temper tantrum is one of the best in the book – until “our fury was gone” (nuestra furia se fue). And that night, the little girl feels peaceful for the first time since Ana moved away, and a lovely scene shows her and her little brother sleeping in their shared room as their mother looks lovingly at them and the crocodiles lie curled up on the floor, resting like oversize scaly dogs. After that the crocodiles go away: the girl has let all her sadness and anger at losing Ana out into the open, and now she can enjoy life again; and her mother even promises that the family will visit Ana on the next vacation. Sensitively written with a fine, age-appropriate understanding of a typical child’s feeling of being overwhelmed by a major life event over which she has no control, Crocodiles Everywhere – whose author/illustrator, Estelí Meza, lives and creates art in Mexico City – is psychologically sensitive and presented with care and understanding, teaching its lesson of “let the sadness and anger out instead of keeping them bottled up” without any hint of preachiness. The crocodiles are never an actual threat to the book’s narrator, but they are big and intrusive and get in the way of everything – just as strong real-life emotions such as sadness and anger do. Crocodiles Everywhere is a book that succeeds on multiple levels, helping parents show young children the importance of finding ways to handle emotions, reassuring kids that those emotions are normal and understandable, and – in this excellent bilingual edition – showing that English speakers and Spanish speakers share common response patterns when big things happen and can benefit from handling their responses in the same way.
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