My Day/ Mi Dia: A Book in Two Languages/ Un Libro en Dos Lenguas

My World

by Rebecca Emberley

Captioned illustrations and Spanish and English text describe things found in a house.

Genres: Nonfiction, Spanish Literature

28 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1993

Reviews

[Rose Rosetree · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rebecca Emberley has carved out a niche for herself as a writer and illustrator of picture books. She has a way with words, specifically language. And here, that language is Spanish.

Her visual cleverness is on display. Not to showoff but to present interesting angles on the information.

For instance, in two facing pages we see three people -- including one kid -- but only from the knee down. This angle is perfect for teaching vocabulary, and illustrating the two bilingual sentences that follow. (I'll render them only in English.)

I walk to school with my friends.

I carry my books and my lunch.

RATING THIS BOOK

So accessible and delightful: Rebecca's creativity doesn't call attention to itself, but there is so much visual creativity on every page. FIVE STARS for a brilliant book.

[Carly Killian · Rating 4 out of 5]

A combination of large, bright images and simple sentences are used to walk the reader through a child's day in both Spanish and English. This is a good book for children who are learning a second language, but could also be used to introduce children to everyday vocabulary in both Spanish and English. Children will relate to the different parts of the day the narrator experiences.

[Laura]

This picture book could almost serve as a Spanish-English dictionary to describe one's daily routine. Each page has a different part of the day illustrated, a different step of the routine, and within each picture everything is labeled. For instance, the page that mentions breakfast has some fruits, cereal, milk, juice, etc., and each thing is labeled both in Spanish and English. The actual step of the routine, "I have breakfast with my family," is also translated into Spanish.
This book could be read in a multilingual kindergarten or first grade class during a lesson where students are learning about daily routines and talking about their own daily routines. I think it would be great to allow the students to use this as a reference book in a bilingual classroom or an ESOL class so that if they have something in mind in their native language they can look in the book to see if they can find the translation in English.