Join a large, loving Spanish family for their daily family meal in, Let's Eat. The narrator is the youngest child in a family of seven, including his grandparents, and describes a week's worth of family meals, where one family member is absent each day for one reason or another. The characters all have Spanish names, phrases, and dishes are sprinkled into each page to subtly introduce your little one to some Spanish. The colorful watercolor pictures are very unique looking and have primarily white backgrounds, as the characters and their meals are the focus of the book. Readers get a few different perspectives of the family at the table; looking around as through the reader is seated at the table with the family, looking down at the table from a birdseye view, and even looking in from out a window.
The book begins and ends with the entire family (plus one new member at the end!) sitting around the table and all talking at once for a noisy-but-loving meal. The sense of family is very strong throughout the story which is a wonderful subject to discuss with your child. You can talk about your own family meals, what types of food are traditional in your house, and how often the whole family is there. The final page of the book includes Spanish-to-English translations for all of the Spanish words included throughout the story, so you can answer your childs' questions about, "What's that mean?" Even if they don't ask, it is great to include the definition so they can more fully understand the story.
My friend, Nick, enjoyed the fact that the Mama in the story was pregnant, because Nick's mom recently had another baby. He said his family also had meals together, and his mom would "Eat a lot because the baby was always hungry." Nick said he figured the baby would be "gigantic" when it came out, but he was happy to see it was "normal sized." I asked Nick if he enjoyed eating dinner as a family and he said, "Yeah, but I always have to wash my hands first - even if they aren't dirty."
--Audra