From: Ginny Moore Kruse <gmkruse>
Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2000 17:03:14 -0600

While you've been reading various messages about bilingual and Spanish language books, remember that books eligible for the ALA/ALSC-REFORMA Pura Belpre Awards are not required to be bilingual.

By circumstance, some of the books brought to visibility through that award process this year are bilingual, but that is not a requirement. At this time, members of the Pura Belpre Committee are not required to have a working knowledge of Spanish. Books in Spanish are not eligible. Eligible books need only be written or illustrated by a Latina/o writer or artist. In addition, the theme or topic of the books must portry, affirm and/or celebrate Latino/Latina cultural experience.

It occurs to me to add one observation. Books in Spanish or bilingual books are a challenge to publish because there are various types of Spanish. For example, we notice that occasionally a children's book first published in English and then translated into Spanish is translated into academic Spanish or a Spanish more familiar to people in Spain than in Central America. There are many other examples. Even otherwise wonderful children's books sometimes have a Spanish word spelled or used incorrectly or with faulty grammar.

We hope that this discussion has heightened appreciation and/or suggested audiences for several books most of the teachers, librarians, and parents in the CCBC-Net community might not otherwise have thought about. Perhaps this discussion has heightened or renewed the interest of some of the editors and publishers who are part of the CCBC-Net community in acquiring manuscripts with the assistance of readers familiar with this particular Latino/Latina cultural experience. Possibly non-Latino/a book reviewers will seek the assistance of content specialists as they review newly published Latino books, so as to more greatly appreciate what a book is rather than what it is not, so that their reviews are not limited to summaries, and so that ordinary or mediocre books are not overly praised merely because they exist. Finally we invite everyon to look again at ALA webpage information to find out more about the 1998 and 1996 Pura Belpre Award & Honor Books, as you continue to seek excellent Latino literature for any reason
(http://www.ala.org/alsc/belpre.html).

If you are anywhere near Chicago on Sunday, July 9, you are welcome to attend the Pura Belpre Awards event that afternoon between 2:00 4:00pm. The awards will be presented and all winners and Honor Book recipients will respond during this ceremony scheduled as part of the American Library Association annual conference. You will be able to meet and talk with the authors and artists honored after the formal event. At this time we don't know where this event will be held. It will be so encouraging to have a strong show of interest from librarians and publishers that afternoon. This event was one of the high points of the annual conference in 1998, and it promises to be a high point once again this year. Think about attending... We'll try to provide specific information about this later in the spring.

Thanks for your great comments and good information, everyone. Each of you contributed substantially, and - as a result - we've all learned more.

Ginny Moore Kruse (gmkruse at ccbc.education.wisc.edu) Cooperative Children's Book Center (www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/) A Library of the School of Education, University of Wisconsin Madison
Received on Mon 20 Mar 2000 05:03:14 PM CST