When I was small, my father told me a story every night. He made them up as he went, and they always started the same way: Había una vez. Once upon a time.
The hero was a little monkey called Kiki el Mono.
Kiki el Mono went wherever my curiosity went. If I had spent the day thinking about dinosaurs, he met the dinosaurs. If I had been staring at the night sky, he flew to the planets. And every story carried one small lesson, usually about friendship, loyalty or gratitude.
I didn't know it was teaching. It was the best part of the day.
Kiki el Mono is a book now
The first one is out: Kiki el Mono and the Dinosaurs.
It's a picture book for children 2 to 5, and it's bilingual on every page. Each page has one picture and one short rhyme, in English and in Spanish, so a grown-up can read it aloud and a child hears both languages side by side.
There are six stories, each with its own lesson: friendship, gratitude, sharing, patience, loyalty and courage. Each one comes in two editions with the same pictures, one with English on top and one with Spanish on top. The rest follow over the coming weeks.
You can see all six covers on the Kiki el Mono page, along with a coloring page you can print.
Why it belongs in a Spanish newsletter
Some of you have a little one in your life: a child, a grandchild, a niece or nephew, a student.
Reading aloud to someone that age may be the gentlest Spanish practice there is. Nobody grades your accent. The sentences are short. The picture carries the meaning when a word doesn't. And a rhyme only works when you say it with the beat, so it quietly teaches you where Spanish puts its stress.
There's a name for the best version of this, dialogic reading: the grown-up asks questions as they go, and the child does more and more of the talking. Every Kiki el Mono book ends with a page of those questions, in both languages.
If you've read my piece on hearing where Spanish words end, this is the same idea from the other side. Saying the words out loud, slowly, with the text in front of you, is how your ear learns the seams.
A small experiment for this week
If there's a little one near you, read them one page of something in Spanish. English first, then the Spanish line. Then point at the picture and ask one question: ¿Qué está haciendo? What is he doing?
If there isn't, read one page of the free book aloud to yourself, twice, slowly. On the second read, notice where your voice wants to land.
¡Sigue adelante!
Ariel