From: ALevine at Scholastic.com <ALevine>
Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2000 15:21:25 -0500

I've been very interested to note that in our discussion of these award-winning books there seems to be almost universal praise for and acceptance of the idea of texts appearing in both English and Spanish in the same edition, rather than in separate editions. I can certainly see the value of that: readers who are fluent or proficient in one language, but not the other, can read the text with comfort, while perhaps sampling the text in the "second" language. And gatekeepers (librarians, teachers, parents, etc.) who speak only one language have an easy basis for judging the quality and appropriatness of a text when making the decision whether or not to share a given book with a child. I'm sure there are other strong arguments
"for" having bilingual texts as well.
        But there also arguments for having separate editions, especially in picture books, as opposed to storybooks or poetry. If a text is to appear twice in one picture book, it must by necessity be shorter (twice as short) than if it were to appear once. Twice the amount of text also begins to limit the potential for the creation of a TRUE picture book -- i.e. one in which the words and pictures interact and share equal importance in the telling of the tale. (This winds up being true simply because the text block begins to occupy a great deal of space.)
        I have also heard it said that teachers prefer students who are learning a language to pick up cues from the pictures, rather than from text in their native language, placed temptingly side by side.

        I'd be interested to hear what others feel and think about this issue.

Arthur Levine Editorial Director Arthur A. Levine Books Scholastic
Received on Sat 18 Mar 2000 02:21:25 PM CST