Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month!

Hispanic Heritage Month runs from September 15 – October 15. Let’s celebrate by reading books by Hispanic authors and illustrators! One great way to find these great books is to check out the Pura Belpré Award. This award, established in 1996, is an annual award presented to a Latino/Latina writer and illustrator whose work best portrays, affirms, and celebrates the Latino cultural experience in an outstanding work of literature for children and youth.

I compiled this list of Pura Belpre award winners to help get you started. Books on this list are all award winners or honorees and range from easy to chapter to teen titles.

But who was Pura Belpré? Pura Belpré was a woman that changed the way children’s librarians work with kids. She was the first Latina children’s librarian in the New York Public Library. As a children’s librarian, storyteller, and author, she enriched the lives of Puerto Rican children in the U.S.A. through her pioneering work of preserving and disseminating Puerto Rican folklore.

In honor of the Pura Belpré award, all Chippewa Valley residents can access TeachingBooks.net which offers a searchable database of more than 1,000 online Belpré resources, including author interviews, book trailers, book discussion guides and more! Visitors to the site can hear directly from Latino/Latina authors and illustrators as they talk about and read from their books.