I’ve known since before I was a mom that reading aloud to my kids was very important to me. I think I’ve done a good job so far! While my parents also read a lot to us as babies and young kids, I don’t think we read aloud together beyond picture books. Once my brothers and I learned to read, they turned us loose and made sure we had plenty of books TO read, but not necessarily with them.
Maybe because of this, I felt a little lost when it came to finding chapter books to read aloud with my growing daughters. The chapter books I remember are the ones I read to myself, and they were basically all in English.
Thank goodness for the internet! So grateful for the people working hard to make sure our older kids here in the U.S. have access to great books en español. I’ve gathered all of the Spanish chapter books for preschoolers we’ve read together, arranged from simplest to most advanced. We alternate with English books!
By the way—if you’re wondering when kids are ready to listen to chapter books, I can share our experience. I started reading these aloud to my hija mayor a few months before she turned 4, which was perfect for her. Hija #2, two years younger, would occasionally listen in; but wasn’t REALLY interested in these longer stories until this year (she’s also newly 4). There’s no prize for moving on from picture books super early, of course. The most important thing is for reading to be fun, not frustrating! But in my experience, any time between 3.5 – 6 years old is a good place to start. And you can always go back to picture books if chapter books aren’t working).
SPANISH CHAPTER BOOKS FOR PRESCHOOLERS
I bought this one recently thinking it would be good for my oldest (6) ¡pero le duró un suspiro! I would definitely categorize this book as an easy-reader (big text, lots of illustrations), so it’s perfect for emerging readers. My 4-year-old and I also read it together and it was great for her. This series, about a spunky Pakistani American girl, has a few books in it, which is always nice! I also appreciated the little glossary at the back, and I think each book has different craft and recipe ideas (this one has facts about Pakistan and instructions for building your own cardboard building).
Disclaimer that our copy (from Amazon) was NOT very well printed (there were several parts where whole sentences ran together into one giant word with no spaces). That unfortunate fact aside, my daughters were very into this story of Princesa Magnolia, who is summoned by her monstruo-alarma while having tea con la chismosa de la Duquesa Pelucatiesa. Gotta love a spunky, monster-fighting heroine! This one also has very big text and lots of illustrations, though it’s a little longer than the “Yasmin” ones.
Valentina is a princess, but she dreams of hunting dragons just like her brothers do. She is NOT excited about creating elaborate hairstyles or wearing fancy dresses like her sisters. So even though she’s supposed to stay home, when a fierce dragon threatens to eat the children in the kingdom, Valentina sneaks out behind all of the knights to conquer the beast. Will she defeat the dragon, or is she better off leaving dragon-hunting to the men? This book was originally written in Spanish which is always a plus! And we all really liked it. 🙂
A Beverly Cleary book I had never heard of! This story, about little mouse who meets a boy staying at his hotel and starts riding his toy motorcycle, is so cute! My oldest daughter and I read this one together a year or two ago and it was the first one where she was just on the edge of her seat, asking me to read another chapter. The translation was well-done, too; although one thing about reading translated chapter books is that, in my admittedly limited experience, they all do read like translations somehow. I feel like that’s not always the case for translated picture books—just something about those longer stories I guess.
Another (very famous) Beverly Cleary hit! I’ve heard the Ramona series is phenomenal & gets even better after “Ramona la chinche” (“Ramona the Pest” in English). I need to hunt for the other books in the series in Spanish! This book, in which Ramona starts kindergarten, was perfect to read together in the months before my oldest started kindergarten. (Which she never did, lol—thank you COVID—but this book did help her get excited for school.)
We LOVED the first book we read in this collection of stories about Domingo, a Teporingo rabbit, who lives with his friends in El Refugio. I heard these books described as “similar to the animal worlds created by A.A. Milne, but reimagined in the mountains of Mexico,” and I think that summary is perfect. These charming stories are a perfect little escape (especially true for us during the pandemic). We read “Invierno” a few months ago, and writing this post reminded me that I need to pull out “Primavera” to read (we’ll do one each season this year)!
This was the very first chapter book I attempted to read with a then-3-year-old. We ended up having to put it down for many months and come back to it later because the story was a little hard for my daughter to follow. Like I said, no prizes for moving on to chapter books too early! Once we DID pick it up, she loved the story just like I hoped she would. Reminder that this book starts off with a rather detailed conversation of wanting to kill little Wilbur the pig! I forgot that small detail and wasn’t mentally prepared the first time around to discuss animal slaughter with my small child, haha.
Charlie y la fábrica de chocolate
I remember reading this one as a kid! It was so fun to see my own kid love every crazy, magical part. I think Roald Dahl’s brain must have been quite a fantastic place. Most of his books are wonderful, but I think this is probably the one with the most kid-appeal. (I mean, endless amounts of candy…)
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As always, I hope this list is helpful! I think it’s so important to continue giving our kids access to reading material in Spanish as they get older. And to be honest it’s been challenging for me! Our library doesn’t really have Spanish chapter books for preschoolers like these. So I hope this roundup can help someone in the same boat. And I would love to hear your suggestions if you have any!
P.S. These are some of the early chapter books in English that we’ve read together, in case you’re interested: Matilda, Mr. Popper’s Penguins, The BFG, (also available in Spanish!), Time at the Top, Ivy and Bean series, and a few from The Boxcar Children series.
Hello Vanessa,
Thank you for the great list above; I’ll definitely check it out!
Lately, I’ve been reading “El Principito” by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry to my kids (ages 6 & 8) and they seem to like it so far. Not quite preschool age, but maybe a good suggestion for later too.
Thanks Claudia, great suggestion! I think my 6 y/o would love that one 🙂