Con Pollo: A Bilingual Playtime Adventure

PreS-K–Pollo is a small white chicken who just likes to play. And play, and play, and play—all day! The reader is invited to come along “con (with) Pollo,” in both English and Spanish. Unlike many bilingual titles, which offer word-for-word translation of the English text in Spanish, Fallon and Lopez take a more creative approach. A series of questions are asked in English and reiterated in Spanglish. “Do you want to go to the beach? OR Go to la playa con pollo? Do you want to go skateboarding? OR Patinar con Pollo?” It’s a busy day for Pollo, going to school, to the library, the toy store, building, flying, and looking at the stars. Young readers will want to engage. Simple, bold, colorful illustrations, reminiscent in style of Peep and the Big Wide World, are perfectly suited to grab and hold the attention of the intended audience. An illustrated glossary of translated words in the back matter serves as extra scaffolding for the language learning in the story and will assist non-Spanish-speaking adults with pronunciation.