Working alongside book author Emilia Banuelos, I illustrated her children's book titled "El Papalote Perdido." Through a series of watercolor images, I depicted the story of a Mexican-American girl named Lucía and her lost kite, wandering through the Sonoran Desert in the Southwestern US. From rattlesnakes to tarantulas, saguaros to agaves, I painted all of the details that made this story so unique. Together, Emilia and I created a complete children's book that we plan to share with children throughout the valley by providing the book to local libraries and elementary schools.

Working alongside book author Emilia Banuelos, I illustrated her children's book titled "El Papalote Perdido." Through a series of watercolor images, I depicted the story of a Mexican-American girl named Lucía and her lost kite, wandering through the Sonoran Desert in the Southwestern US. From rattlesnakes to tarantulas, saguaros to agaves, I painted all of the details that made this story so unique. Together, Emilia and I created a complete children's book that we plan to share with children throughout the valley by providing the book to local libraries and elementary schools.

The purpose of this creative project was to design a children’s book for parents, educators, caregivers, and speech language pathologists to promote vocabulary growth in young readers. Children’s books are commonly used in classrooms to connect students with new places and ideas. Books are a powerful learning tool that speech-language pathologists utilize during therapy sessions to support their language and speech development. El Papalote Perdido (The Lost Kite) is a multidimensional children’s book that provides a representation of Hispanic culture, the biodiversity of the Sonoran Desert, and a shared book reading guide that can be a tool in classrooms and therapy sessions. This literature review summarizes the research and importance of Codeswitching, Shared Book Reading, and representation. The goal of the projected children’s book, El Papalote Perdido, is for Hispanic children to increase self-worth by being represented in the illustrations and Spanish embedded in the text. Additionally, the book is for adults to learn reading strategies to build young readers' language and literacy development.