The Life of/La vida de Valenzuela: A Bilingual Picture Book Biography

K-Gr 2–This brightly colored board book tells the story of baseball player Fernando Valenzuela’s (1960–2024) origins in a small farmer’s village to his baseball career with the Los Angeles Dodgers and beyond. Valenzuela was born in Etchohuaquila, a small farming village in Mexico. Youngest of 12 children, the boy loved baseball and was distinguished for pitching with his left hand. He signed with a local team but was later recruited for the Dodgers. The short book packs a lot of facts in its board pages, such as how his teammates learned how to speak Spanish to communicate with him, and how he became a voice on the radio and TV, covering the Dodgers in Spanish. Right before he died, the team retired his Number 34 jersey. Pride and admiration exude from the pages in this work for the youngest readers. Though there is a large amount of text on the pages, especially for toddlers and preschoolers, this is a fun introduction to biographies for the younger elementary crowd. Cheerful digital images in primary colors add joy to the work, perfect for catching the attention of little ones. The English text appears first at the top, while the Spanish text appears at the bottom. Bilingual listeners may not be able to sit still to hear both languages but alternating the reads between the two languages will work for multiple audiences.