Here are some of the most recent books that I have acquired for the heritage speakers section of my classroom library. While my non-native speakers limit themselves mostly to the leveled readers published by TPRS Publishing (and those are great), finding the right pleasure reading book for my heritage speakers can be difficult. The last books, the series by Amanda Hocking, were bought last Spring and they were a HUGE hit. Neil Gaiman´s graphic novel Coraline was so popular that it was promptly stolen, so I am looking for a replacement. If you buy pleasure reading for heritage speakers, tell me what has been successful in your class!
I just remembered Carlos Ruis Zafon’s youth trilogy: El principe de la niebla (set in N. Spain?), El palacio de la medianoche (set in India), Las luces de septiembre (with scary toy maker in somewhere in Spain, similar to the short film, Alma, also set in Barcelona-youtube).
Also, he wrote Marina, another scary novel set in Barcelona as are his adult novels.
Mike, where do you purchase your books? I’m looking around for some of these titles. I’m finding some on Amazon and Barnes and Noble, but many appear only as digital downloads.
The surest but a fairly expensive way is to type in amazon.es to go straight to Amazon in Spain. From there the process is very easy to follow (for a Spanish speaker, of course). It will be cheaper if you can get it on the US site.
I also get daily emails about any used books posted to the Powells.com website… it is easy to sign up to see only books in Spanish: http://www.powells.com/used/ Although most are not of interest, it is quick to glance through the dozen books each day and occasionally I´ll find a real gem. I recently got a graphic novel version of Crepúsculo from Powell´s. Yes, the Twilight craze is long over, but it is a graphic novel! Cool!!! I also got my Amanda Hocking novels at half price from Powell´s used books.
I have read that 35% of all books in Spanish bought in the US come from iberlibro.com (how reliable is that statistic I am not sure). If I am looking for something in particular, then it seems easier to track it down by author name than title. For instance, a search for a book that the author titled El jamón del sándwich will get nothing while a search for the author (Graciela Bialet) gets 18 entries, including a book called Jamón del sanguche, El. Go figure. In fact, as I browse iberlibro.com I can see why it has a great following…
The Amanda Hocking books, last I checked, were available from the B&N US site, but not Amazon.
Buying books for heritage speakers gets expensive quick. Luckily many of them like the TPRS novels, so I have bought at least one copy of EVERYTHING that Carol offers whether it is part of my curriculum or not.
A book that kids love reading parts of is Stories That Must Not Die by Juan Sauvageau. As far as I know, it’s only available used (from Amazon and B&N) and only in a bilingual edition. Avoid buying the separate volumes or chapters; look for the whole book. It has a beautiful version of La Llorona, a short history of Gregorio Cortez, the adventures of the roadrunner and coyote (rivals), and much more.
Thank you, I will look for it!