The Status of Children’s Fiction Literature Written in Spanish by U.S. Authors

Abstract

This study seeks to problematize the paucity of children’s literature written in Spanish by U.S. Hispanic authors and its effect on the quality of bilingual education programs. Findings of the study indicate that (1) many of the available books come from Spanish speaking countries or are translations of English works into Spanish; (2) a high degree of imbalance exits among the genres; (3) few books are published for students in late exit or maintenance bilingual programs; (4) evidence of a lack of “author balance” exists with several prominent authors writing many more books than others and few male authors represented; and (5) relatively few of the children’s books were written by Mexican-American authors. It is suggested that U.S. Hispanic teachers respond to the challenge by authoring children’s books themselves in order to change the trends in children’s literature written in Spanish.