Planting Stories: The Life of Librarian and Storyteller Pura Belpre by Anika Aldamuy Denise (Nonfiction Picture Book Review)

Planting Stories: The Life of Librarian and Storyteller Pura Belpre 

by Anika Aldamuy Denise

Illustrated by Paola Escobar
Published by HarperCollins
on January 15, 2019

Genre: Children's Nonfiction, Biography, History, Languages

Length: 40 pages

Ages: 4 - 8 years

Goodreads | Amazon | B&N | BookDepository

Synopsis:

Follow la vida y legado of Pura Belpre, the first Puerto Rican librarian in New York City. 

When she came to America in 1921, Pura carried the cuentos folkloricos of her Puerto Rican homeland. Finding a new home at the New York Public Library as a bilingual assistant, she turned her popular stories into libros and spread story seeds across the land. Today, those seeds have grown into a lush landscape as generations of children and cuentistas continue to share her stories and celebrate Pura's legacy. 

This portrait of the influential librarian, author, and puppeteer reminds us of the power of storytelling and the extraordinary woman who opened doors and championed bilingual literature. 

Our Thoughts:

When Pura Teresa Belpre leaves San Juan for New York, she brings the stories her grandmother taught her in Puerto Rico with her.  Being trilingual, she found a job at the library, and after finding that there are no stories in Spanish and no stories from her homeland, she decides to write them herself.

As a lifetime patron of local libraries and a lover of books in general, I checked this out from my own library entirely based on the title and cover alone. I was happy to find that it is a biography about a woman that brought her languages and stories from Puerto Rico to Manhattan and published them as well as translated English stories into Spanish, giving a voice to Latinx authors and opening a world of reading to children. Diversity in children's books is so important, as we all need both mirrors and windows to see and understand ourselves as well as others.

Likewise, languages are a beautiful thing and I was pleasantly surprised to find that this book is bilingual, with Spanish words and phrases mixed in. We've been learning a bit of Spanish for the past couple of years so I only had to look up a couple of words but overall the context and imagery made it easy to understand even though I think those with no knowledge of Spanish might be turned off from this book since there are no accompanying translations.

The illustrations are fantastic. They're quite realistic while still having a beautiful cartoon quality to them with bright colors and patterns and lovely flowers throughout. Plus, the bookshelves are so lovely to look at! 

I can't help but think this would make an amazing animated film.

Follow