Waiting for the Biblioburro by Monica Brown and illustrated by John Parra (Tricycle Press, 2011) is based on the true story of a librarian in rural Colombia who delivers library books into the lives of children with the help of his two donkeys, Alfa and Beto.
Told from the perspective of a little girl named Ana who dreams of the world beyond her home, Waiting for the Biblioburro lets us wait with anticipation with her as she looks forward to the coming of the library donkeys. When she doesn’t have her own books to read, she tells her own stories. When she does have books, she devours them and dreams of the return of the biblioburro to open up the world even further.
The text is interspersed with Spanish vocabulary (about 20 words), with a glossary at the end. Each painting is acrylic on panel, perfectly suited to the South American setting of the story. In the end, my four-year-old son and I found this an inspiring account of the power of story in our lives. My son loves his library and couldn’t imagine being far from one. It’s a great reminder of the blessings we have of being close to a multitude of books!
