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Jul 13, 2023

'I needed to do it': Twin Falls resident publishes children’s books in English and Spanish

Author Richard Aldama has written two children's books that can be found for sale at DAP Books of Twin Falls or on Amazon. When Richard Aldama’s son moved to Twin Falls with his family 11 years ago,

Author Richard Aldama has written two children's books that can be found for sale at DAP Books of Twin Falls or on Amazon.

When Richard Aldama’s son moved to Twin Falls with his family 11 years ago, tons of flies flew around the house they were building in Kimberly.

Funnily enough, the swarming of the flies is what made “Freddy Wants To Be A Cowboy” possible.

“I asked my grandkids, ‘Hey, what’s it gonna be for tonight?’ because I would make up bedtime stories for them,” Aldama told the Times-News. “And my oldest grandson said, ‘Well, let’s do a fly named Freddie. He wants to be a cowboy.”

Aldama, a 74-year-old resident of Twin Falls, released “Freddy Wants To Be A Cowboy” and “Little Rosie’s Favorite Ride” within the past year — two children’s books both in English and in Spanish on stories he had made up for his grandchildren. Despite his limited proficiency in Spanish, he said a Spanish version was “necessary” considering the large Hispanic population in the Magic Valley.

“Something inside of me was telling me that I needed to do that,” he told the Times-News.

Author Richard Aldama talks about writing children's books Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2023, at DAP Books of Twin Falls.

Although Aldama was born in the United States, his grandparents traveled from Mexico to the United States at a very young age. His grandmother came to the U.S. during the Mexican Revolution, while his grandfather hitched trains to and through the U.S. as an older teenager several years after the revolution.

His grandparents didn’t know each other at the time, however, both enrolled in schools in the United States where it was equally challenging for them to integrate into the schools and would get in trouble for speaking Spanish.

“I guess it worked out because they ended up being bilingual, but it wasn’t a positive way of doing it, you know?” Aldama said. “And so when my grandparents had kids themselves, they decided they would make English their first language.”

Aldama told the Times-News that when his parents had kids — Aldama was their firstborn — they did the same and made English their primary language.

Aldama said he and his siblings did fine, but he also noticed the other side of difficulties Hispanic kids had — they had challenges acclimating to the classroom environment.

“There was actually a girl that I went to school with, whose older brother didn’t speak hardly any English at all. And he was put in special education as a result. It shouldn’t be like that,” Aldama said. “So to have the opportunity to write books now, especially with immersion programs starting to develop in south-central Idaho, makes a difference. It opens it up to a new audience and creates connection and inclusion.”

About this time last year, it only took Aldama a couple of hours to write “Freddie Wants To Be A Cowboy” before knew he had to find an illustrator.

Illustrator Alannah Dyer shared copies of the character sheets for Richard Aldama's books. This is the character sheet for "Freddie Wants To Be A Cowboy."

Illustrator Alannah Dyer shared copies of the character sheets for Richard Aldama's books. This is Rosie's character sheet for "Little Rosie's Favorite Ride."

Searching through Google, he went on Etsy to find the perfect person to capture his stories. That’s when he messaged Kimberly resident, Alannah Dyer.

“I had been praying to God and dreaming to illustrate children’s books,” Dyer told the Times-News. “It wasn’t long before Richard reached out to me on Etsy, which is kind of funny. He had Googled children’s illustrators and then my name popped up.”

When they first met, Dyer said Aldama didn’t give himself all the credit for the stories he had written. He emphasized the impact his grandkids had on the development of each character and the storyline and wanted them to specifically look like the characters.

“Having the characters look like his grandkids made things go a little bit quicker. I was able to get a character done every two days,” Dyer told the Times-News.

Author Richard Aldama has his children's books for sale Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2023, at DAP Books of Twin Falls.

Translations were also in the works by retired Twin Falls High School Spanish teacher, Ronald Withers. Charles Ankenman, a Spanish teacher from Nevada, also helped translate alongside Withers for “Little Rosie’s Favorite Ride,” which was published earlier this year.

After only three months of working on the illustration, the storyline and the translation separately and coming together to make the final product,” Aldama gave Dyer a gift.

A kid with a big straw hat, a plaid shirt and cowboy boots next to big black letters filled the front page of the book that was laid on her hands.

“Freddie Wants To Be A Cowboy,” the letters spelled out.

“It was kind of a dream come true,” Dyer told the Times-News. “After all that time you feel like you have this connection with these characters. It’s really nice to be able to see the finished product and feel like you worked hard enough to make it come alive.”

Aldama’s books are available at the DAP Bookstore in downtown Twin Falls, and on Amazon. He is also looking to get approved funding so schools and dual immersion programs would have access to his books.

“It’d be something that could be used in education, and hopefully, the kids would enjoy it,” Aldama told the Times-News. “And I think if they could get the story side by side that might help them learn one language or the other, depending on what their primary language is.”

Oregon Trail Elementary held a ribbon-cutting event at 1 p.m. inside the gymnasium for the launch of their Dual Immersion Program.

On June 6, Glanbia plant employees started customized Spanish classes after requesting it through CSI's College and Career Readiness, hoping to bridge a gap between the language barrier and lack of connection with Hispanics across the company.

Illustrator Alannah Dyer shared copies of the character sheets for Richard Aldama's books. This is the book layout sheet for "Freddie Wants To Be A Cowboy."

Illustrator Alannah Dyer shared copies of the character sheets for Richard Aldama's books. This is the book layout sheet for "Little Rosie's Favorite Ride."

In the past three years, the Hailey Public Library has expanded its Spanish book collection by 40%.

The Hailey library is one of 300 libraries nationwide that received a competitive American Library Association's Libraries Transforming Communities: Focus on Small and Rural Libraries grants. This came with $3,000 dollars to support follow up actions based on what the staff learned.

Through these funds, the library was able to purchase almost 200 Spanish/bilingual books, most of which were children's books.

The increase of Spanish Print Checkouts/Renewals for Spanish books have increased by 32%. This doesn't include media.

Even with these increases, however, there have been a few factors the library had kept in mind through its expansion of Spanish collection.

"Spanish books are expensive; there's not a lot of publishers in this country that have put out Spanish books," Library Director Lyn Drewien told the Times-News.

Both Drewien and Library Director and Program Manager Kristin Fletcher said that many times libraries will hire someone who speaks a foreign language and have them travel to other countries to get books from there.

"We were just talking about how libraries in Los Angeles will hire someone, for example, who speaks Portuguese and will send them to Brazil to pick out books that are written in Portuguese," Fletcher told the Times-News.

Although the Hailey library's Spanish collection has increased by 40%, it represents only 2.5% of the amount of books they have overall.

"We're still working on trying to bridge that gap," Fletcher told the Times-News.

With the help of the funds and community support, the library also hosts events for community members, such as weekly conversational sessions in English and Spanish, monthly bilingual story times and a monthly Spanish language movie nights.

Monica Carrillo-Casas covers Hispanic life and affairs for the Times-News. Contact Carrillo-Casas at [email protected] or 208-735-3246.

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