Teens in Spain

Children's Literature

Teens make up only a minority of the country’s population, but they are a key part of the country’s future. They attend school, some opting for college, others for a technical education. It was not until 1970 that Spanish children had to be enrolled in school. Most students move from grade to grade, but more than 26% of all 14-year-olds repeat a grade. The school day ends about 4:00. After school activities include futbol (soccer), basketball or chess. The teens have chores to do at home before going to the public square to hang out with friends. Sometimes dinner comes after 9 p.m. Ninety percent of teens continue to live at home while attending a university close by. One-third of the country’s population live in the country where life has not changed much. People in Spain continue to observe a siesta after lunch. Some shops close for a few hours in the afternoon. The citizens enjoy many fiestas of faith and tradition. Spain became a part of the European Union in 1986, and the economy has made gains in the past decades. Bullfighting is considered an art, and there are about 500 permanent bullfighting rings in Spain. With beautiful photographs, this picture book is ideal for students writing a report on Spain. A historical timeline, a glossary, a bibliography, and index offer further study. Reviewer: JoAn Watson Martin

School Library Journal

Gr 7 & Up - These titles present short overviews of the everyday lives of adolescents. Each one contains chapters on school and family life, career aspirations, leisure activities, and festivals and holidays. Despite a few broad generalizations, the books give an accurate and up-to-date view of teens in both countries, with many references to their love of cell phones and texting, and good descriptions of current slang and pop culture. The attractive color photographs emphasize this currency. Franceincludes several discussions of the experiences of Muslim immigrant teens, and Spainhas a short section on different ethnic groups. Each volume includes a chart of quick facts. The books direct readers to the FactHound page, where they are given links to several other sites and book titles with general information about the country. This process seems unnecessarily cumbersome, as the links are to fairly well-known sites, like the CIA World Factbook, which are easily accessible through regular search engines. The lists for further reading are also of little use. Despite these drawbacks, these books would be solid purchases for libraries where students do reports on everyday life in other countries.-Kathleen E. Gruver, Burlington County Library, Westampton, NJ

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