A few months ago, we reviewed Oh No! Gotta Go! by Susan Middleton Elya.  You can read our review of it here.

As a quick recap though, we loved it.  I mean, rolling on our chairs laughing, rereading it long after Sophiapea lost interest–loved it.

That was a while ago though, and for some reason it took me this long to track down more of Elya’s handiwork.  Boy oh boy oh boy, why did I wait so long? Seriously!
Last Wednesday on our library jaunt, I all but cleaned out the Elya section.  We picked up Rubia and the Three Osos

No more, por favor!

Fire! Fuego! Brave Bomberos!

F is for Fiesta

and of course, we had to reread

Oh no! Gotta Go!

If you have a child that you read books to, and by some stroke of bad luck you haven’t yet discovered Susan Middleton Elya’s wittiness–seriously, get ye to a library!  Pronto!

Not only are the stories rhyming and fun, but they are such a unique twist on traditional bilingual stories.  I’ve read plenty of bilingual kids books to my daughter, and they usually just repeat everything in English or Spanish, which means that either my kid loses interest halfway through the book, or I lose interest halfway through the book.

Alternately, you might find a book that is solely written in Spanish, which is fine unless you remember as much of your high school Spanish as I do.  (hint: el gato es rojo is more or less the extent of what I remember)

Susan Middleton Elya, however, is my hero.  Bilingual books that make sense AND are fun to read.  Have I emphasized her awesomeness enough yet?  Don’t take my word for it, go check some books out.  They’re wonderful.  I promise.

My rating for all of these is 5 out of 5 stars.  We will be reading lots more of Elya’s handiwork in the future, believe you me!