Lejos/Far

This bilingual board book builds language skills while introducing readers to concepts of spatial awareness. Former U.S. Poet Laureate Herrera engages with the idea of distance in simple, elegant sentences in both Spanish and English as Gómez’s restrained digital illustrations suitably mimic the text: “El árbol de limones está lejos de mi casa./ The lemon tree is far from my house.” As the end phrase of one spread becomes the starting phrase of the next (“Mi casa está lejos de la ciudad./ My house is far from the city”), a brown-skinned tot, sometimes walking with an adult, visits a variety of places until the sentences move skyward, leading the child to reflect, home again, that “El sol brilla sobre mí/ The sun shines over me.” Slow page turns encourage pondering everything, near and far, under the sun. Ages 2–5. [em](Sept.) [/em]