ABSTRACT
The process of reclaiming one’s language should include the use of quality children’s literature in readers’ native languages, as Freeman, Freeman, and Ebe propose. Reclaiming language also means creating classroom contexts where critical discussions about quality literature written in Spanish can take place—in other words, where young children can read the word and the world (Freire, 1970) in the language of their homes and families. This means that we should move beyond the widespread belief that we need to teach emergent readers first to read in primary grades and then later use reading to learn. Literature discussions with emergent bilingual readers have taught me that young children are more than willing to use reading not only to learn about the world but to critique and make sense of unfair situations around them.
