Mis días con Papá / Spending Time with Dad

$18.95

This charming bilingual picture book deals with gender equality.

by Elías David
Illustrations by Claudia Delgadillo

ISBN:  978-1-55885-969-2
Publication Date:  May 31, 2023
Format:  Hardcover
Pages:  32
Imprint: Piñata Books
Ages: 4-8

Look Inside

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This sweet bilingual picture book follows a boy and his stay-at-home dad, who takes care of him while his mom goes to work at the port, “where huge cargo ships come and go every day.” She oversees the containers that go around the world!  

The boy recounts his days spending time with his father, from “when the sun starts filling the room with light,” to eating breakfast, brushing his teeth and talking to his grandparents who live in a different country. His favorite time of the day is when he gets to play with his dinosaurs and his friend Tato, a stuffed cat who joins him on all his adventures. When Mom comes home, the whole family goes to the park. After dinner, he goes to bed and thinks about the ships from his mom’s work, his dinosaurs and his grandparents. Soon he falls asleep, hugging his special kitty.  

In this bilingual picture book brightly illustrated by Claudia Delgadillo, young children will relate to the family and its daily routines while immigrants will see themselves as they adjust to life far away from relatives. And children will see that the roles of men and women are fluid; dads can be loving fathers in charge of their kids’ well-being and moms can go to the office every day—or vice versa.

Click here to watch Elías David in the APP Authors Speak series talking about his creative process.

“In David’s day-in-the-life debut, a bilingual picture book, a Latinx-cued child narrates a joy-filled day at home with Dad while Mom works at a shipping port. Matching the text’s steady tone, Delgadillo’s watercolors present cozy domestic scenes of the family smiling as they make their way through the day.”—Publishers Weekly

“Bilingual readers will appreciate the ease with which code switching occurs. The author provides a shift in traditional norms of what families can look like while still offering readers comfort in seeing a familiar structure in the day. The soft palette of the illustrations is perfect for the intended audience. VERDICT This relatable story is a recommended purchase.”—School Library Journal

ELÍAS DAVID, a native of Reynosa, Mexico, is the author of Instantes (Alja, 2017) and Una lucidez aturdida (UANL, 2022). He is the associate editor of Suburbano Ediciones (SED), a magazine on culture. He lives with his family in Houston, where he is pursuing a Ph.D. in Creative Writing in Spanish at the University of Houston.

CLAUDIA DELGADILLO was born in Mexico City and graduated from UNAM with a degree in graphic communication. She is the author and illustrator of Biodiversidad (UNAM, 2011).