Tierra, Tierrita / Earth, Little Earth — Jorge Argueta

“My name is Earth / but people call me Little Earth.” In the fourth installment of their award-winning Madre Tierra / Mother Earth series of trilingual picture books about the natural world, Jorge Argueta and Felipe Ugalde Alcántara collaborate again to introduce Mother Earth, who is “full of all the colors / and all the flavors.” She is the mother of water, fire, wind and earth. Some call her planet, others nature or creation. “I am Mother Earth / a globe spinning around the sun, / creating sunrises, sunsets and nights.” She is the song of all the plants and animals, she is “dew, snow, heat,” she is life. A Junior Library Guild selection, this book about Mother Earth reflects Argueta’s indigenous roots and his appreciation for the natural world. Felipe Ugalde Alcántara’s stunning illustrations depict streams, mountains and wildlife in their habitat. Containing the English and Spanish text on each page, the entire poem appears at the end in Nahuat, the language of Argueta’s Pipil-Nahua ancestors. This is an excellent choice to encourage children to write their own poems about nature and to begin conversations about the interconnected web of life.