La amistad/Friends

K-Gr 3—This set of monolingual Spanish books covers a variety of important social topics, and each work is titled to reflect the issue at hand: problem resolution (La resolución de problemas), using good manners (¿Me permite, por favor??), friendship (La amistad), responsibility (La responsabilidad), and bullying (¿Eres un abusador??). Each entry presents a variety of questions, which prompt readers to think critically as they form a response. Readers are invited to think about how they would react in various hypothetical situations, such as coping with bullying, learning how to be a good friend, and taking responsibility for personal success. The inside covers offer parents, caregivers, and educators a guide for presenting information to children in order to help them make predictions and recognize key vocabulary words and concepts, which are bolded throughout. Quality, accurate translations, easy-to-read text, and culturally relevant and diverse photos work in tandem to communicate important messages about important social topics and help kids make inferences about what they read. Each book contains a reading comprehension quiz made up of five or six questions, as well as a glossary and review of important terms. A list of questions to continue the conversation is included in the back. This set would be an excellent addition to a school library's general Spanish or ESL collection or as a supplement to a public library's general nonfiction Spanish collection.—Natalie Braham, Denver Public Library