Cerca / Close

by Juan Felipe Herrera, Blanca Gómez (Illustrator)

Overview

Some things are close — cerca. Others are far — lejos. With sweet simplicity, this charming dual-language board book and its companion volume, Lejos/Far, engage young children.

Mi cuarto está cerca de la cocina. My bedroom is close to the kitchen.

As she walks from her kitchen through a daisy-filled yard to the house next door, a little girl notices things that are close to each other — just as the little boy she goes to visit is close to her.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780763690625
Publisher:	Candlewick Press
Publication date:	09/17/2019
Edition description:	Bilingual Edition
Pages:	14
Sales rank:	322,211
Product dimensions:	6.90(w) x 6.90(h) x 0.30(d)
Age Range:	2 - 5 Years

About the Author

Juan Felipe Herrera is a poet, artist, and activist. He was the U.S. Poet Laureate from 2015 to 2017. He is the creator of Jabberwalking and the author of Imagine, illustrated by Lauren Castillo. He lives in Fresno, California.

Blanca Gómez started drawing illustrations for her mom when she was a child. Now she illustrates for people from near and far, all over the world. She lives in Madrid, Spain.

Editorial Reviews

A bilingual Spanish/English spatial-awareness concept book...Quiet, simple, and sweet.
—Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

09/20/2019

PreS-K-These bilingual board books build on their titular concepts. Lejos, whose cover depicts a young boy on a sailboat in the distant ocean, opens with: "El árbol de limones está lejos de mi casa." Next, his house is far from the city, the city from the ocean, and so on, until the repetitive, rhythmic narrative reaches the sun, which shines down on the him back at home. The Spanish text is given preference, situated directly over its italicized English version, while both provide strong story arcs. Full-spread illustrations feature a cool color palette of blues and greens, accented with yellows and reds, while ample white skies provide a strong sense of visual balance. Straight lines form familiar objects, softened by curving roads, winding hills, and rounded faces, all lending a soft feel to this gentle book. Cerca is similarly illustrated, with a young girl protagonist whose round face and eyes are featured up close on the cover. She starts by saying, "Mi cuarto está cerca de la cocina," followed by the kitchen is close to the door, the door to daisies, daisies to an apple tree … until her friend is close. VERDICT These two titles are requisite purchases given their pleasing, predictable narratives and delightful illustrations.-Ruth Quiroa, National Louis University, Lisle, IL

School Library Journal

2019-11-24
A bilingual Spanish/English spatial-awareness concept book.

Herrera—U.S. poet laureate from 2015 to 2017—introduces the concept of proximity in a series of simple statements that start with a child getting ready to go out and end with the child approaching a friend's house. The statements are presented first in Spanish followed by italicized English, effectively normalizing the Spanish. "Mi cuarto está cerca de la cocina. / My bedroom is close to the kitchen." Gómez's color-saturated illustrations portray a child in a jaunty striped T-shirt and two cute pigtails proceeding from bedroom to kitchen to door, daisies, apple tree, horses, and, finally, the friend's house. By breaking up the journey into incremental "cerca / close" steps the author brings the close friendship into focus. Companion volume Lejos / Far starts with the same two characters under a lemon tree, with the friend—now the main character—looking back to the house in the distance. This time the emphasis is on places that are far: from lemon tree to house, city, ocean, and mountains. As the child walks in the mountains holding a caregiver's hand, clouds can be seen far above, and further than that is the sun: "El sol brilla sobre mí. / The sun shines over me." Both the children and the adult have brown skin and black hair.

Quiet, simple, and sweet. (Board book. 2-4)

Kirkus Reviews