“Mirror” (you can see yourself in that character) and “window” (you get to live someone else’s experience) books for children are incredibly important to their development, self esteem, ability to empathize with others, and more. A lot has been written about this topic, so we’ll just say that filling your library (both personal & mortar and brick) with diverse characters from all sorts of backgrounds and ethnicities can only serve to expand your child’s horizons (and maybe your own). That being said, there is a huge gap between our country’s demographics and the demographics of children’s characters. So it’s not always easy to find these books, and even harder to find them in Spanish.
One way to make sure this changes is to create a demand for these products–by buying them and asking your libraries to keep them in stock.
We Need Diverse Books (among many others) has done great work on this front. But I’ve yet to find a good resource focused specifically on diverse books in Spanish, for those of us who have taken on that personal challenge. That’s where this page hopes to help.
Below you’ll find lists of Spanish language board books, picture books, and easy readers and early chapter books with diverse characters and protagonists.
Buy, share, and borrow from friends and your libraries!
And let us know if there are any books we may have missed, so we can add them below. This is not (yet) intended to be a complete list, but hopefully in time, it will be. We will update this page as we discover old books and new ones are published. Share any additions you may have in the comments below! (We’re still working out some bugs, so if the links don’t take you to the right version of the book, please also let me know!)
Board Books
Picture Books
Easy Readers, Elementary Age & Chapter Books
All Amazon links are affiliate links, which means we may receive a (very) small promotional payment at no cost to you. We should note that all of our recommendations are our own and are not affected by the Amazon affiliate program.
Thank you for the list! We love the Lola books by Anna McQuinn, they are originally in English but the translations are really well done and can be found on Amazon. Some of the titles are: “A Lola le encantan los cuentos”, “Lola en la biblioteca” and “Lola le lee al pequeno Leo”.
https://www.amazon.com/Lola-encantan-los-cuentos-Spanish/dp/1580894445/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1515702758&sr=8-8&keywords=lola+mcquinn
Not in Spanish but worth mentioning is Rachel Isadora’s “Say Hello!” as it features a Hispanic family and teaches kids to say hello in a variety of languages. My little ones love this book. It is also pretty easy to translate its main text into Spanish as you read to your kids.
Thank you for the recommendation!! I’ll add them to the list and check them out. Most of these are unfortunately translations–I hope to find some great, original books available from Amazon international (Spain, South America) and will share those soon!