Luz Lucero, Niña Astronauta: English & Spanish

Luz Lucero, Niña Astronauta, a picture book, starts by telling readers that a new “kid astronaut” has been selected to go into space. Her name is Luz Lucero, and she must go through extensive training in order to go to the moon. The book utilizes a font that is meant to look futuristic but could be confusing to new readers. I don’t think this book is simple enough for kids to be able to read it by themselves, even if they have great reading skills. It includes a lot of technical words, such as “cosmonauts”, “linguists” and “mechanical engineers”, plus many characters whose occupations will lead to children’s having to ask their parents to explain what these people do. The paragraphs are long, but the sentences are short.

The book is written in both English and Spanish, but the Spanish is slightly sub-par to the English. As a bilingual Spanish and English speaker myself, I found there were a lot of words that sounded like they didn’t belong in the book. I even encountered words that were not spelled or conjugated correctly.

The last four pages of the book contain messages to the “lil readers” on how they, too, can work their way towards becoming astronauts as well as an author’s note. I was disappointed to see that these messages were all in English only. For a book that is written entirely in English and Spanish, the part where the author wants to connect is entirely lost to the readers that perhaps are reading this book in Spanish only because they are just learning English.

The art style is very kid-friendly with a lot of pink and purple meant to appeal to little girls such as the main character. This is an art style that kids, themselves, can imitate with their own crayons. It really works for the story that the author is trying to tell.

As a first generation Canadian born to immigrant parents from Latin America, it's super important for me to see publishers and authors making progress to include different languages and cultures in the books kids are reading today. As a kid, I didn’t have many books with characters similar to me, and I am so proud of everyone that is making a difference when it comes to diversity and inclusion. I think everyone should take the time to read this book to the kids that might see themselves in Luz Lucero so that they know they can do anything they want to, no matter where they are from or how old they are.