Chris and his wife Carey feel it's important for their kid to learn Spanish. The lessons of wife-subjugating and child-beating that come with the traditional Mexican nursery rhymes in her little bilingual book are just an added bonus.
Lost In Translation? [moseleyworld]
Well, this begs the question: why teach the kid Spanish in the first place? Is it to give her a jump on her peers? If so, fine and dandy. Is it to expose her to another culture (or other cultural variations)? Well . . .
Maybe the idea is that all children's books should be sanitized to reflect our shining culture (whatever that is) or specific cultural values. Except then you run the risk of raising children who will grow up to be 54-year-old British teachers who go to work in a different culture without having a clue that naming toys after Islamic prophets is a bad idea. Not good.
Tortillitas is one of the books in our 3, 000-plus library of kid books, almost all of them ground for fertile discussion. That part's just as important as the reading itself.
[funny, I don't feel a burning need to discuss the legacy of women being the servants and/or property of their husbands with a two-year-old. -ed.]