A nifty glossary could be found in the backmatter, which is helpful for those who don't speak Spanish. The poem was written especially well and follows the rhythm and style of the original poem rather well too – even in Spanish.

It is written in the style of 'The Night Before Christmas'. As today is Christmas Eve, when Nochebuena are traditionally celebrated, I thought it would be apropos to read this book. It is a book of a family preparing for a Nochebuena celebration.

'Twas Nochebuena is a children's picture book written by Roseanne Thong and illustrated by Sara Palacios. And the added bonus is you can snuggle up familiar Mexican recuerdos American or you can learn something new, like we did. The pages are illustrated with perfection. But it's not Roseanne Greenfield Thong's fault that I have never lived in Mexico. For example, Posadas to me is a small hotel, not a walk you do on Christmas eve. Because my Spanish speaking experience has been in the Andean and Caribbean regions, I sometimes know other words. Personally for me I almost gave this four stars instead of five because this book liek so many books this seems to me to be very Mexican-American focused (bear with me, no hate emails please). Because in order for the paragraph to make sense (and rhyme) you kinda need to know how to pronounce what you are reading. If you don't speak Spanish (or can't pronounce Spanish words) this book may be slightly difficult.

Other books have just certain characters speaking Spanish (Think Dora Explorer style), this book has Spanish words thrown in the text flow like a natural Spanglish speak. Some bilingual books have the English and Spanish text on the page which ever makes a super long book or a confused page. I love that the Spanish words are interspersed with the English text. And a week before Christmas I stumbled upon this book in my local library. I am always looking for good bilingual books.

Es Nochebuena by Roseanne Thong