If Your Babysitter Is a Bruja by Ana Siqueira and Irena Freitas

Happy Monday! I hope you had a wonderful weekend. I'm excited to welcome Ana Siqueira and Irena Freitas to Watch. Connect. Read. Hello, Ana and Irena!

 

They stopped by to discuss If Your Babysitter is a Bruja, Halloween, pumpkins, ghosts, and more. I wrote the words in purple, Ana wrote the words in black, and Irena wrote the words in orange. Thank you, Ana and Irena!

If Your Babysitter Is a Bruja tells the story of a full-of-imagination girl who faces the unknown with ingenuity and fun, a lot of fun. In the end, she not only learns what it takes to be a bruja, but also not to judge a book by its cover or, that is, a bruja by its sombrero.

Irena Freitas’ illustrations are so much fun. I love the girl’s sneaky expressions. I love the energy and how we can get inside the main character’s head through the illustrations. Every time I look at the spread where the bruja spits the magic potion… I laugh. I feel lucky Irena accepted the invitation to illustrate the Bruja.

Halloween is a time where you can fill your belly with candies and your imagination with monsters, wizards, and witches. Some are bad, some are good, but you can always face the unknown with a dash of imagination and a spark of sneakiness.

If Your Babysitter Is a Bruja’s cover…Hopefully, it will encourage readers to pick up this wonderful book!

Pumpkins, ghosts, cats are always up to no good like most, like most fun things are!

Did you know I made the illustrations for this book with all sorts of media: collage, ink, and digital techniques?

Ana Siqueira is an award-winning author from Brazil who cackles but doesn’t wear hats. When not flying with brujas, she teaches Spanish to adorable little ones, where she casts a learning spell that nobody can resist. Besides Bella’s Recipe for Success and If Your Babysitter Is a Bruja, Ana has also published a Spanish early reader for the education market. She loves being an abuela and a vovó to her Cuban-Brazilian American grandkids. She lives in Florida with her husband, who just might be a wizard.

Irena Freitas is an award-winning artist and illustrator. She has an MFA in illustration from SCAD and loves illustrating people, funny situations that happen in daily life, and whimsical stories. When she is not reading and illustrating books she likes to travel and visit new places. Irena lives in Manaus, Brazil.

Look for If Your Babysitter Is a Bruja on August 23, 2022. 

Simon & Schuster's Description: 

This bouncy, bilingual picture book is an enchanting, rollicking read-aloud for small ones with big imaginations.

On the night before Halloween, a new babysitter might be more than she appears. If she wears a black sombrero and cackles like a crow, she might just be a bruja! One little girl is determined not to fall victim to an evil witch or her cats. She knows bath time is really the bruja’s way of putting her in a boiling cauldron, and the only way to keep her at bay is with a magic potion—or is it?

With a boundless imagination and plenty of tricks up her sleeve, the young protagonist may just have the best night ever!