Storytime Bilingüe featuring “How Will We Get to the Beach?/Como iremos a la playa?”

During the summer, we like to spend each Saturday at my mom's little cottage by the beach, in an idyllic seaside community called Latimer Point. My great-grandparents bought the summer cottage for my grandmother on her 23 birthday, who then spent almost every summer there for the rest of her life. My mom grew up spending her summers there, I grew up spending my summers there, and so it brings me so much joy to see my children spend summer days there too, playing in the field, swinging at the playground, taking walks in the wagon, and enjoying themselves at the beach.

Because I read at least one book to Maya before every bedtime and nap time, I decided we needed a small collection of bilingual books about the beach for when she and Mateo take their afternoon naps on our Summer Saturdays at Latimer Point. In this week's Storytime Bilingue, we feature our first bilingual beach book, How Will We Get to the Beach?/Como iremos a la playa? written by Brigitte Luciani.

This is an English-Spanish bilingual book, with a guessing-game story of a mother and her baby who are having a lot of trouble getting to the beach for the day. They need to bring their turtle, a book, a ball, an umbrella, and of course, the baby, but every means of transport is proving to be futile. Finally, they receive help from a friend, and get to spend a beautiful day at the beach. The illustrations are beautiful, but the story is quite unrealistic (who refuses to go to the beach without their pet turtle???) and I was disappointed in the quality of the Spanish translation. So as I read, I rephrase the wording just a little bit here and there. But Maya and Mateo like the guessing element of the story, and I like reading a book about the beach by the beach.

The day didn't turn out to be the optimal beach weather day, so I decided to do this reading on the porch. I also was worried if I tried to read the book on the beach, the kids might be more interested in playing in the sand and the ocean than reading! But from our vantage, you can still see the majestic Atlantic in the background of our story time. So sit back, listen to the ocean breeze in the background, and enjoy our story by the shore.

And here's a few photos from our day at the beach...

Swinging at the playground

Playing in the sand at the beach

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