ABSTRACT This studious mood seeks...

ABSTRACT

This studious mood seeks to problematize the paucity of children's literature written in Spanish by means of U.S. Hispanic authors and its issue on the quality of bilingual education programs. Findings of the investigation indicate that (1) many of the available works come from Spanish speaking countries or are translations of English works into Spanish; (2) a high station of imbalance exits among the genres; (3) hardly any books are published for bookish mans in late exit or maintenance bilingual programs; (4) evidence of a lack of "author balance" exists with several prominent authors writing many more main division s than others and few male authors represented; and (5) relatively scarcely any of the children's books were written by the agency of Mexican-American authors. It is glance ated that U. S. Hispanic teachers accord to the challenge by authoring children's main division s themselves in order to change the turns in children's literature written in Spanish.

Hispanic close examiner enrollment in schools increased between the period of 1980 to 1991 on 48% and the number of Spanish speaking children in the U s continues to grow (National Center for Education Statistics,1993). The number of limited English speaking children whose abode language is not English is estimated to be anywhere between 2 and 4 million. Of that number, 729% or about 1682560 children take rise from a Spanish language background (Fleischman & Hopstock, 1993) These school-aged children are placed in either bilingual, English as a other language, Spanish language or in regular English classrooms. Spanish language children's literature, therefore, should be an explain market - growing and expanding in numerous literary directions. Unfortunately, there is little evidence of of that kind growth.

Children's literature in the last twenty years has undergone tremendous development However, during the 1980s, and nothing else 1.5% of all children's literature take the part ofed the African American group, and other minorities including Hispanic American collections fared even less well (Yokota, 1993 p 157) The "1990 Notable Children's Books" list had no work about Hispanic Americans (Norton,1990). If Spanish children's literature volumes follow today's population growth figures for Hispanics in the United States, then the public should have seen an increase in the number and availability of these effects However, during this same period and into the 1990 the situation for children's parts written in Spanish is discouraging.

Yet in spite of its still relatively small percentage, the amount of Spanish children's literature available in the United States in the last decade has grown (Schon1993) plenteous of this literature comes from Spanish speaking countries and a large amount take the part ofs translations of English works. Literature written in Spanish from Hispanics living in the United States is alone slowly starting to appear. In an analogous illustration, this would be comparable to having children's literature in American seminarys authored and published only at the British, with no American authors showed Several issues demand that this unreasonable situation be examined: (1 ) minority children should descry their cultural and linguistic diversity cast reproached in the literature they read; (2) literacy programs should muse diversity; and (3) minority authorship lacks to be encouraged for the sake of authenticity.

An issue being debated now (Barrera, 1992; Gonzalez-Jensen & Sadler, 1997) deals with the importance of the cultural and linguistic origin of the authors who are writing in Spanish today. As Schon (1992) reports, there is a paucity of main division s that "reflect the cultural background, environment, meditations needs, and feelings of Spanish-speaking children and adolescents." Alma Flor Ada further substantiates the ne for volumes that reflect the culture of children when she asserts,

All children have the right to have their language and cultural identity recognized at the school. They all merit to be encouraged to dialogue with the works they read.... that all children are indeed valued protagonists.... the protagonists of their possess life stories (Perez & Torres-Guzman, 1992)

In regard to the almost exclusive use of mainstream, non diverse literatureBarrera (1992) cautions, " there is a marked cultural homogeneity to it all that restores the children's lives and experiences invisible" (p 230) Therefore, as literature based programs in indoctrinates continue to grow there will be a larger ne for culturally and linguistically relevant literature for Hispanic and other minority children to make sure equity for them in those programs.

The author's ethnic background is closely linked to the issue of relevance, that is, a situation in which the child as a reader can identify culturally with a story, setting, or character in a piece of literature. Children from different agricultures living in the U. s deserve stories written about them or their cultivation Research regarding the effect of the author's ethnicity forward the reading achievement of children, and the effectiveness of literature where the author's ethnicity and that ofthe characters match, is inconclusive (Han-is,1992; Yokota,1993). Many researchers and educators believe that in many instances, literature written through an author whose ethnicity or cultural background does indeed match the children's ethnicity makes a significant impact in succession reading achievement. How does the literature in Spanish today rate in this regard?