Lover Boy/Juanito El Carinoso: A Bilingual Counting Book

Parents, teachers, and grandparents are always asking Cinco Puntos for bilingual early readers for pre-kindergarten and kindergarten children. They want fun books that give kids a delicious feel for the Spanish and English languages. And what could be more fun and delicious than counting kisses? Novelist and children's book author Lee Merrill Byrd was inspired to write this book one morning when she watched her own four-year-old grandchild Johnny. He was so happy and full of life that he was dishing out kisses for everybody and everything. He kissed his mother, he kissed his father, he kissed Stray Gray the Cat, and of course he kissed his grandmother! He was so happy he even kissed his bossy big sister. That morning he earned the nickname Lover Boy!

Lee Merrill Byrd loves what happens when her grandchildren wander through their bilingual neighborhood in El Paso, Texas. Her first children's book, Treasure on Gold Street, followed her granddaughter Hannah. Now it's little Johnny's turn. Algonquin will publish her first novel in Spring 2006.