English & Spanish
4+
Latinx Family
Bilingual Books
Big Families
Confidence
Self-Esteem
Laurenne Sala & Zara González Hoang
summary
Mi Casa is My Home is a beautiful celebration of family and spending time with them! Readers are treated to a house tour from Lucía, our narrator who lives with her big family in their casa. There’s something so endearing about what children proudly choose to tell you about their lives, and Lucía is no different. The reader is treated to seeing where Lucía plays with her cousins, dances with her family, and where she debates important topics with her siblings.
The illustrations are bursting with jovial family members, events, and everything resonates of closeness and affection. The walls of their home are bursting with photos the same way that their door is always about to burst open with more visitors. The language is a beautiful bilingual mix of Spanish and English, which brought me back to living in Southern California. Swap meets, Spanglish, and obviously the best tacos. I couldn’t help but whip up some of my favorite snacks to eat with the story, and made salsa verde with tomatillos from my garden and some guacamole (unfortunately no avocado tree is in my yard)!
Mi Casa is My Home is the perfect story to celebrate Latinx & Hispanic Heritage Month because of the way it exudes joy and the way that Lucía warmly invites the reader into her home to celebrate con ella familia.
This book was kindly sent by Candlewick, but all opinions are my own!
Laurenne Sala
Laurenne Sala is a children’s books author, storyteller, and poet. Her picture books include You Made Me a Mother, illustrated by Robin Preiss Glasser, and You Made Me a Dad, illustrated by Mike Malbrough. Laurenne Sala lives with her husband and daughter in Los Angeles. Image was found here!
Zara González Hoang
Zara González Hoang is a children’s author and illustrator. She’s the creator of the picture book A New Kind of Wild and also illustrated the picture book Thread of Love by Kabir Sehgal and Surishtha Sehgal. About Mi Casa Is My Home, she says, “Drawing Lucía’s casa was like drawing my childhood–full of family, fiestas, and food!” Zara González Hoang lives with her family outside of Washington, DC.
Zara González Hoang grew up in a little bungalow in the frozen tundra of Minnesota. Surrounded by snow she spent her days dreaming, doodling and listening to the colorful stories of her Dad’s life growing up in Puerto Rico while trying to figure out where she fit in as a Puerto Rican Jew in a sea of Scandinavians. (She’s still figuring that out.)
These days, she lives outside of DC in a magical suburban forest with her Mad Man husband, human-shaped demons and curly coated corgi. She still spends her days dreaming and doodling, but now instead of listening to stories, she’s starting to tell some of her own.