PEOPLE
¿Cómo se dice buena idea? Iguana!

When Christianne Meneses Jacobs couldn’t find a quality children’s Spanish-language magazine, she got an idea: create one.

MENESES JACOBS' IGUANA has something a little different from most lizards under its skin—pages of entertaining and educational reading, artfully assembled out of a desire to preserve cultural identity.

The second-grade teacher at Garfield Elementary School in Phoenix, Arizona, created Iguana, a magazine for children ages 7­12, written in Spanish. It was born out of Meneses Jacobs’ struggle to find quality Spanish literature for her young daughter. She wanted something to help her retain Spanish language skills and take pride in her heritage. With help from native speakers from around the world, she and her husband published the first 32-page issue last year. They filled it with stories, educational articles, and colorful pictures.

“The idea for this magazine is that kids will continue reading in Spanish, especially since we are becoming a global society where it’s so important to be bilingual,” says Meneses Jacobs, a native Nicaraguan who moved to the United States in 1988. While helping bilingual children retain the language and preserve the Latino culture, the magazine serves as a supplemental classroom resource. She alternates reading the magazine to her students in English and Spanish, and says some students enjoy it so much they ask their parents for a home subscription. The bimonthly magazine contains ideas for art projects, recipes, word searches, comic strips, and interviews with prominent Latinos.

—MARY ROBBINS

© 2006 NEA Today. Reprinted with permission.

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