The Stories I Read to the Children:
The Life and Writing of Pura Belpré,

the Legendary Storyteller, Children's Author, and New York Public Librarian

Author: Pura Belpré; edited by Lisa Sánchez González
Price: $28.00
Expected publication date: unknown
ISBN: 978-1-936117-15-4
Printed on acid-free paper

Number one in the series Critical Multiculturalism and Librarianship, Isabel Espinal, series editor

The Stories I Read to the Children is the first collection of Pura Belpré’s writings, comprising selections from her publications and personal archives (housed at the Center for Puerto Rican Studies library at Hunter College, CUNY). The introduction to the book is an extensive biographical essay by Lisa Sánchez González.

Pura Belpré (1899-1982) – memoirist, children’s author, translator, and bilingual librarian – is the earliest and most significant Latina contributor to American children’s literature and librarianship. Starting under the supervision of Anne Carroll Moore and ending in the midst of the South Bronx Library Project, Belpré’s career with the New York Public Library, which spanned most of the twentieth century, rode in tandem with the development of children’s reading rooms in the NYPL and the implementation of the uniquely multicultural vision of the Division of Children’s Services. This volume recaptures her practioner’s view of how American children’s literature and library services could and should meet the needs of bilingual and bicultural children. Her essays and stories provide a wealth of analyses, interpretations, and experience in a field of practice and inquiry that is extraordinarily relevant to the challenges that authors, translators, librarians, and scholars wrangle with today – not just in New York City, but in the nation at large. The Stories I Read to the Children will be an invaluable resource for multiple constituencies.

The Stories I Read to the Children is the first book in the Library Juice Press Series on Critical Multiculturalism in Librarianship.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Lisa Sánchez González's reputation revolves mainly around “recovery” work of early Latino authors. Her book, Boricua Literature: A Literary History of the Puerto Rican Diaspora (NYU Press, 2001), was the first and remains the only literary and cultural intellectual history of the stateside Puerto Rican community.