30 Days of Diverse Picture Books - Fire! Fuego! Brave Bomberos by Susan Middleton Elya

It's Day 6 of our 30 Days of Diverse Picture Books. How have you been celebrating Picture Book Month? I hope it's by sharing great titles with kiddos, or even just reading some yourself (or to the cat. . .we won't judge!)

Tonight's pick is one that Sprout's super obsessed with lately - Susan Middleton Elya's Fire! Fuego! Brave Bomberos. It's not surprising that he loves this book, since one of his favorite things about kindergarten is his weekly Spanish class. And Bomberos is tons of fun to read, so I'm glad to have it in heavy rotation.

Elya's done something really terrific with this book in that she mixes the Spanish throughout without subsequently translating the words. That's great for an emerging reader like Sprout, as it teaches him to interpret the unfamiliar words through the context and pictures. It also makes Bomberos more appealing to bilingual readers, who must cringe at every book that uses a Spanish phrase and follows that right up with English phrase. It also makes the text flow a lot better and doesn't take away from the fun (though there's a glossary with pronunciation guide at the end - super helpful.)

Bomberos is lively and exciting, just right for kids who want to get into the action of firefighting. And thanks to Dan Santat's sly touches with the illustrations (we really love the expressive animals!), this is one picture book that works all the way around. Muy bueno!

Fire! Fuego! Brave Bomberos by Susan Middleton Elya, published by Bloomsbury