¿Algo más? (Anything else?). Such a common, useful question! When I am choosing picture books to read with beginning Spanish learners, I am always happy to find a repeated phrase that we use commonly in conversation. ¿Algo más? is that phrase in the book Siesta, by Ginger Foglesong Guy.
Siesta is a bilingual book with very simple text in Spanish and English. As two children collect objects, they ask each other ¿Algo más? with a rhythm that will soon have children repeating the words with you.
The children in the story collect objects of different colors to take outside, but Siesta is more than a book for learning color vocabulary. In addition to amazing illustrations that support the color words in the text, there is a real narrative that will capture the imagination of children. Children love to create their own enclosed spaces. My kids made houses and forts, and my youngest even went through a stage of sleeping in her rather small closet.
Children reading Siesta will identify with assembling what they need to create their own space. They will also learn the Spanish vocabulary for common objects and colors with phrases like mi mochila azúl (my blue backpack), mi chaqueta roja (my red jacket) and mi libro amarillo (my yellow book).
¿Algo más? ¡Sí! Lost in the lovely world of the story, children will quickly absorb the question ¿Algo más?
