Children's Bilingual Books
The Books
Below are links to lists of bilingual children's books. We did our best to find books with languages spoken commonly in the Puget Sound Area. Most books are bilingual with English.
Amharic | Chinese | Hmong | Khmer | Lao | Multilingual | Phillipine | Samoan | Somalian | Spanish | Tagalog | Vietnamese
Where available, culturally relevant books have been provided in place of solely translated materials. Most of the books included are available locally or online. We have included publisher information, and most often, a place where the book may be purchased. Approximate prices have been listed in some cases but please note that they may change.
Local Sources
For Asian language books in Seattle, visit Kinokuniya Bookstore at Uwajimaya.
- 525 S. Weller,Seattle WA [map]
- (206) 587-2477.
The Seattle Public Library has a Literacy/ESL Outreach Program.
Online Sources
- Powell's: Children's Foreign Language
- Barnes and Noble: Children's Bilingual Books
- Barnes and Noble: Books in Spanish » Children
- Amazon Children's Bilingual Books
Major Publishers
Some of the major publishers of children's bilingual books are:
- Asia For Kids or 1-800-888-9681 [Asia For Kids]
- Amazon.com (A)
- Beyond Words Publishing (BB)
- Children's Book Press (CPB)
- Ethiopian Books for Children & Educational Foundation (EBCEF)
- Hollym International Corporation (HM)
- Learning Design (LD)
- Liberty House Company or 1-877-203-4486 (LHC)
- Multicultural Kids (MCK)
- Multilingual Books (MLB)
- Mantra Publishing, (UK) (MP)
- Pan Asian Publications [Pan Asian Publications]
- Powells (P)
- Shen's Books or 1-800-456-6660 (SHEN)
- Tilbury House (TH)
- Kinokuniya Bookstore at Uwajimaya, 525 S. Weller, Seattle, 206/587-2477 (UWA)
- Yuan Liou Publishing Co. Ltd. (YL)
Suggestions?
This is by no means a complete list. We researched the following other local languages but were unable to locate bilingual books: Ilokano, Mien, Oromo, Tigrinia, Toishanese. We welcome and encourage additions to the list, especially in the languages that have been difficult to find.
Please call or email your comments to Charles Stuart [cstuart@pageahead.org or (206) 461-0123].
Top 15 Languages in the Seattle School District (2001-2002)
| Language | Serviced | Fluent |
|---|---|---|
| Amharic | 146 | 306 |
| Cambodian | 307 | 728 |
| Cantonese | 436 | 1148 |
| Ilokano | 102 | 245 |
| Laotian | 118 | 345 |
| Mandarin | 81 | 251 |
| Mien | 120 | 348 |
| Oromo | 133 | 225 |
| Samoan | 69 | 172 |
| Somalian | 499 | 685 |
| Spanish | 1747 | 2587 |
| Tagalog | 279 | 727 |
| Tigrignia | 164 | 395 |
| Toishanese | 76 | 163 |
| Vietnamese | 986 | 2096 |
The first number represents number of students receiving language services, the second number is the number of students who speak that language fluently.
