I’ll Build You a Bookcase/ Te Haré Tu Propio Librero (English and Spanish Edition)

Sometimes the size of a book says a lot. Full-size picture books are beautiful, but they can be tricky to carry around and difficult for little hands to hold. I’ll Build You a Book Case is a smaller size, easy to hold and slip into a diaper bag or backpack.

I loved everything about this book, and I would highly recommend it as a gift for a family with a new baby. The book has bright primary-color illustrations, done digitally and in acrylic. The story starts with a pregnant mother, progresses to a newborn with two dads, and then continues to feature families of all different configurations and cultures. The book is a celebration of the joy of reading together, which it takes beyond the adult-child pair reading, to little free libraries for the whole community. Fantastical scenes and animals are also incorporated. The writing is so creative and lyrical, it really is an imaginative poem, not just instructions for parents to read to their children.

I appreciated how the text was given in English and Spanish––each spread was a complete picture that had the English and Spanish text on different parts of the page. It felt very integrated; neither text was a translation of the other, it was all part of the same story. I think that’s difficult to do well and I appreciate the work that went into it.