Bibliotecas en español/Libraries in Spanish
Teacher Guides, Grades 1-6
(DC Heath & Company)

Project/Publisher: Libraries in Spanish/Bibliotecas en español, Grades 1-6; DC Heath & Company (now part of Houghton Mifflin) The Libraries in Spanish are a rich collection of 144 of the best children's books in Spanish from Latin America, Spain and the United States. Each grade level library of 24 books connects thematically to Heath Literacy, providing Spanish-speaking students access to the themes in Heath Literacy. Students continue to develop their literacy skills in Spanish while they acquire English. Students will see themselves in these collections that reflect the diversity of Hispanic cultures. Three comprehensive teacher's guides provide solid instructional strategies with a proven record of success in bilingual classrooms.

My Role: As project manager, I oversaw all aspects of content, design and production. As senior developmental editor for the Libraries and three teachers' guides, I developed the TG prototype, writers' guidelines, and edited all of the text. I applied my knowledge of children's literature in Spanish to chose the 144 titles for the collections from 40 different international publishers. I fomented relationships with leading publishing houses throughout Latin America, Spain, and the United States.

Comments: "Heath Literacy's Bibliotecas en español are not just sprinkled like a supplement on top of the program. They are a real part of the theme throughout…What better way than this to teach about a culture and a language spoken nearly as fluently as English in our nation." Mary Perez-Nisewander, Delight Valley Elementary School, Cottage Grove, Oregon

Paula's Reflections: At the NABE conference where we launched the Libraries, teachers came up and hugged me in the Heath booth. They loved the streamlined guides with proven instructional strategies, and were impressed with the diversity of the collections. One of my goals was to present a more culturally and linguistically inclusive literature-based reading program than had any other US educational publisher. The freedom I had to create these collections was really quite phenomenal. The Libraries reached beyond presenting only Mexican or chicano culture, perspectives, and voices, and introduced teachers and students to the richness of hispanic cultures throughout the Caribbean, Latin America, Spain, and the United States.

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