El rojo es mejor by Kathy Stinson and Robin Lewis (Spanish translation by Annick Press, February 2014) is a Spanish-translated version of the popular Red is Best, a story about a girl who definitely prefers everything red in her life: her stockings, mittens, and hair ties.

In this story, the girl also gives her reasons for liking her red version: the red stockings let her jump higher, for example. Reading the Spanish version to my kids gave them some new vocabulary. Because of their young ages, however, and the fact that they are not fluent in Spanish, I believe they still preferred the English. I’ll keep trying to get them more familiar with Spanish, as I expose them to more and more stories in Spanish.

My daughter loved the pictures and the story. She can definitely relate to having her favorite things to wear, and she enjoyed pointing to the things for which she too has favorites (her pajamas, her shoes).

I see this book as something that I could use in my teaching! For every claim we make (such as “My red mittens are better”), we must have a reason (such as “my red mittens make better snowballs”). The girl in the story does not really have proof of her reasons, but that adds to the child-ish fun behind it all!

Note: I received a digital review copy of El rojo es mejor.