Pepita Talks Twice

Lachtman, O.D. (1995).  Pepita talks twice.  Houston, TX: Arte Publico Press

 

In this realistic fiction, multicultural picture book, Pepita gets tired of always having to translate English into Spanish and Spanish into English for people in  her neighborhood who are not bilingual.  She decides that she is only going to speak English from now on, but there is a problem.  She can no longer ask for her favorite foods (because they have Spanish names), and her dog Lobo only responds to his Spanish name.  When Lobo almost gets hit by a car because he would not respond to the English version of his name(Wolf), Pepita decides that speaking two languages is a good thing.  We can see that Pepita's personality is frustrated at the beginning of the book, and through dialogue between Pepita and others in the story we can understand why.  The conflict in the story can be person-against-self due to the way she is struggling with herself about the decision to speak only one language.  I feel that it could also be person-against-society because she is always being asked to help others in her community to translate for non bilingual members.  It is a fun book with very nice illustrations.