Spotlight on José Carlos Andrés

Do you remember when I announced that I was going to go through all of the ghost picture books that the library had?

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2025/04/spooky-season-hodgepodge-and-hereafter.html 

I have pretty much done that now.

I say "pretty much" because I have some hold requests in for books that have not been released yet. They didn't come up in my original search, by those terms I am done, but there are always new books coming out, especially with children's picture books.

In this case, one of the earliest ones I read was El Fantasma de las Bragas Rotas, written by José Carlos Andrés and illustrated by Gómez.

I liked it, but also there are some things that reminded me of luchadores, which had come up related to some other supernatural things in work by Yuyi Morales. 

Wondering if I were missing something, I explored a little bit more. I didn't necessarily find anything about that, but I did see that Andrés also had books about a vampire and a mummy, and maybe it made sense to spend more time on him.   

You see, there was the ghost story picture books thing that I was doing. In addition, after reading Celebrating Cuentos, I had decided that my next round of Hispanic Heritage reading would be going over the various awards for children's books that celebrated said heritage: 

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2024/12/cuentos-hispanic-heritage-month.html 

I thought Andrés could be the bridge, except that he is actually Spanish; to the extent that the month focuses on Spanish-speaking or descended people in the Americas, he does not apply.

I still read some books; I am just not counting him toward any particular month.

That is possibly also because I ended up not liking some of his other books so much. I could have read more than I did, but I stopped wanting to.

The big exception was Quiero jugar antes de dormir, illustrated by Alessandro Montagnana. It was delightful, and I believe it would translate well. 

I read a mix of Spanish versions and English translations, based on what was available. Sometimes I was surprised by how the titles came through. So, I can't vouch for the translations; most of the time I have no idea.

One thing that was kind of interesting was Un Vampiro Peligrozo, illustrated by Gómez again. The vampire has a lisp, so the word meaning "dangerous" is spelled with a "z" instead of "s". (You would think "th" would make more sense, but then readers would just think the vampire was from Barcelona.)

That particular title is translated as I'm a Zcary Vampire, and that one probably works okay.

I was surprised that they would use a misspelling, even with an understandable comic intent, because most of these books are in a program for readers, apparently in the 8-year old age group. What I realized was that I don't know how phonics or other programs work in other languages and other countries. Then, as I would read more books, I would pick up on things, where I could kind of see what they were going for. That was interesting (and generally answer is lots of repetition).

So, I don't regret my diversion with Andrés, and I will probably check out his most recent collaboration with Gómez, Franky Frankenstein, when it comes out later this month.

Other books by Andrés and read by me (with illustrators):

Un avestruz con mucha luz (Bea Enríquez)

My Dad is a Clown/ Mi Papá es un payaso (Natalia Hernández)

Carlota Wouldn't Say Boo (Emilio Urberuaga)

Mommy Crumbs (also with Paula González and illustrated by Anna Font)

El pirata de la pata de pato (Myriam Cameros Sierra)

Un ninja poco silencioso (Myriam Cameros Sierra)

Adopting a Dinosaur (Ana Sanfelippo)

The Very Hungry Mummy (Gómez)

Clearly Gómez gets all the scary work.