Tapioca Stories (Spring & Fall 2026)
Publisher Preview
You know what? Ignore the title of this post. Yes, we’re going to do a publisher preview of three titles coming out from Tapioca Stories, but before we get to that we have some topics that warrant discussion.
Look. The American children’s publishing world is a well-meaning conglomerate of different organizations. Between the publishers, the librarians, the booksellers, the educators, and the influencers (however you define them) we all have the best interests of kids in mind. And to a very great extent, a lot of us want to promote multilingual children’s books. Books for kids in Spanish are, in particular, important to us. But the reality of the situation is that when you see a children’s book in the Spanish language, most of the time it’s either a translation of an American book or it’s from Spain. Anything from Mexico or South America is, as strange as this sounds, a rarity in the American children’s book market.
In my own library (Evanston Public Library) we’ve tried to combat this problem in a number of ways. Each year, for example, we send our Latino Outreach Librarian to the Guadalajara Book Fair to get us titles that would be difficult to obtain in the States. But wouldn’t it be so much easier if there was a publisher dedicated to bringing children’s book titles from South American nations to the States?
If you would be so good, please meet Tapioca Stories. This is a self-described, “New York-based publishing house with Latin American soul, introducing young English readers to the finest Latin American children’s books, originally written in Spanish and Portuguese.” Sort of what I was looking for, yes? So yesterday I sat down with Yael Berstein to talk about the state of Spanish literature in America. And in the course of our conversation, Yael brought up two points that I thought were particularly interesting. To my mind, you cannot discuss Spanish books in American publishing in 2026 without addressing the following:
Why does the Batchelder Award (the American Library Association literary award that recognizes the publisher of the year’s “most outstanding” children’s book translated into English and published in the U.S) fail to celebrate authors that translate their own books? I should explain that they certainly don’t intend to neglect anyone. Recently the Batchelder changed its rules so that the only books they will consider are the ones that state the names of their translators on their covers. Considering how often translators are forgotten or completely passed over, this was a great win. However, if the Batchelder is for the best translated book, what is to be done when sometimes (as in the case of today’s The Green Otter by Eduardo Halfon) the author IS the translator? Are we expecting the publisher to then write something like “Written by Eduardo Halfon, translated by Eduardo Halfon” on the cover? We could but… isn’t that a touch odd?
Which brings us to the other point that Yael mentioned to me. When a book is translated into Spanish (or even released in the original Spanish) the Spanish text is never reviewed. All reviews in America are for English editions. No review journal at this time dedicates a section to the Spanish editions of books. And yet, as Spanish versions of titles become more common, it would behoove these review journals to determine which editions contain above par writing and which, in fact, do not. Personally, I feel that out of all the review journals, School Library Journal is the one best suited to this task. Which, I suppose, is something I’ll be discussing with them at the upcoming American Library Association conference later this month.
In the meantime, let’s celebrate the eclectic and interesting titles coming out from Tapioca Stories! Today you’re going to observe books from Brazilian, Guatemalan, and Argentinian (SO many Argentinian) creators. If ever you sought Spanish titles beyond Spain, today’s list should fulfill that need. AND, quick note, Tapioca Stories will be at the upcoming ALA Conference in Chicago. So if you’d like to see any of these books firsthand, you’ll have your chance!
Wanna see these gorgeous books I allude to? Read on here.