Philadelphia author/illustrator Siang Siang Kwa consults with Cynthia Kreilick on their Indonesian/English story, “Our Beat-Up Chevy." (Photo by Sakti Kwa)[/caption]

by Constance Garcia-Barrio

Chestnut Hill hardly seems a hotbed of subversion, but the Chestnut Hill Free Library has sprung a timely surprise with its Spanish Club for children ages 4 and up. Walls, guns and tear gas bombs line our border with Mexico, but in the Children’s Department on Friday afternoons, kids delight in another language and culture with the story hour in English and espaňol.

The kids, a diverse dozen in age and ethnicity, sang a Spanish alphabet song with glee, including the infamous “rr,” which gave them not a moment’s trouble. “Now’s the time for them to learn other languages,” said Cynthia Kreilick, 58, author, educator and president of Morning Circle Media in Oreland, her home. “They soak up other languages at this age,” added Kreilick, who speaks Spanish, English, French and Russian.

From the alphabet song, Kreilick moved to wooden puzzles with animals, fruits, vegetables and other themes. When a little girl lifted the puzzle piece showing a pineapple, the word piňa (pineapple in Spanish) appeared beneath it. With a magic marker, she wrote the word on a piece of paper in big red letters and put a humongous “tilde” — an accent (~) placed over Spanish “n” when pronounced “ny” (as in señor) over the “n.” She correctly pronounced “piňa” with the “ny” sound it has in Spanish.

Kreilick, who brings props aplenty, whipped out colorful maps of the Americas and gave one to each child. “Donde esta Cuba?” she asked. A boy jumped up from the puppy pile of kids on the floor and pointed out the island.

"Donde esta Puerto Rico?" Kreilick asked. “Aqui esta Puerto Rico.” A girl who looked about 5 years old repeated the sentence with no hesitation.

Kreilick explained her strategy. “They’ve been sitting in school all day, so you have to give them something different, give them variety,” said Kreilick, who attended Germantown Friends School, then majored in early childhood education at Smith College.

The sentences led up to a few facts about the coqui (ko-KEY), a tiny frog found only in Puerto Rico. Kreilick slipped in some biology, noting that the coqui has no tadpole stage and that the male cares for the eggs until they hatch.

Morning Circle Media illustrator Alyssa Kreilick at work in her studio, painting illustrations for “Lucha and Lola." (Photo by Cynthia Kreilick)[/caption]

Next, the kids saw a short video that featured a hip-looking, 20- something Puerto Rican biologist speaking in Spanish about saving the coqui from extinction. The kids stayed glued to the video, which primed them for the crowning event, a bilingual story: “The Kind-Hearted Hunter/El Cazador de Noble Corazon,” written by Kreilick and illustrated by Kara Durant, an art teacher at West Philly’s Penn Alexander School. Morning Circle Media published the book. The story involves a hunter who helps the coquis, and later they help him.

Sometimes parents attend Spanish Club along with their children. “My children go to Jenks,” said Caroline Stroll, who’d brought her son and daughter. “We’re from London, and we’ve lived in Japan, so my children speak English and Japanese. Now that we’re in the U.S., they should learn Spanish.”

Kreilick’s whole life seems to have prepared her for creating the Spanish Club. She worked in children’s television programming at WHYY and later developed exhibits at Please Touch Museum. “About seven years ago, I began to feel restless, ready to do something else,” she said. “I’ve always enjoyed writing and languages, so bilingual storytelling was a natural development.” Scott Kreilick, her husband, encouraged her. His company, Kreilick Conservation in Oreland, specializes in architectural conservation.

Morning Circle Media promotes early bilingual literacy. “We’re children’s authors, illustrators and translators committed to broadening the way children experience storytelling and culture,” said Kreilick, who raised her children, now 27 and 30, to speak both English and Spanish. “In a way, speaking English, the language so many people learn, puts us at a disadvantage. There’s little incentive to study other languages. It’s a cliché to say that knowing other languages enriches life, but it’s true. Studies show that bilingual children are better problem solvers. They also multi-task more easily.”

Kreilick has collaborated with her daughter Alyssa, a graduate of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, on “Lucha and Lola,” a story about two friends in Mexico who go traveling together. A family trip to Mexico helped to inspire Alyssa’s illustrations.

Other writers and artists in Morning Circle Media include Mohammed Ahmed, writer and illustrator for “Let’s Cook for Ramadan,” an Arabic/English book; and Frito Bastien, from Jacmel, Haiti, who fled his country under death threats from former dictator Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier, and illustrated “The Whispering Benches,” a story in English and Haitian-Kreyol. Morning Circle Media also does books, e-books, videos and virtual reality stories in other languages and holds workshops and storytelling events.

For more information, visit morningcirclemedia.com. The Spanish Club, which is free, will meet at the Chestnut Hill Library, 8711 Germantown Ave., from 3:30 to 4:15 p.m. Fridays, Dec. 14 and, and 21. To reserve your child’s space, call 215-685-9290.