Juan y Yun tienen un plan

Gr 2-4–A heartwarming Spanish-language chapter book for kids who like realistic fiction mixed with friendship and newfound realizations. Juan, a middle schooler, has moved to a new country where he lives with his grandparents, mom, older brother, and cat. His dad abandoned the family when Juan was five, leaving him sad and confused. Now, Juan, who does not like changes, must navigate a new school, a new friend Yun, and a bully who makes fun of his weight. Although the conflict in this story takes place at school, Juan also struggles at home; he has a loving family, but his single mom is always busy with her seamstress work and is loosely engaged with his life. Ecuadorian author Heredia offers a thoughtful transitional chapter book for younger middle grade students laid out in 18 short chapters and relying on a medium-size black font to deliver the Spanish-language narrative with some vocabulary words. The first-person story flows effortlessly but requires heritage and native speakers to be fluent in this language to read the longer paragraphs and to understand the plot, even when the sentence structure is simple. Each chapter contains sporadic sketchlike full-page charcoal illustrations, providing pictorial clues that reinforce reading comprehension.