This weekend, Linda Letra Bilingual Books opened its first storefront at 7101 NE Glisan Street. This soft launch began at 10 a.m. on Saturday, August 26th, ahead of the store’s official grand opening scheduled for September 16th. This children’s bookstore focuses on published works containing both English and Spanish text or culturally native Spanish language books.
Store owner Rachel Kimbrow has 20 years of experience in elementary education, English as a second language, and bilingual education. “My focus and passion has always been towards language learning and promoting bilingualism for kids and families,” said Kimbrow. She created a curated list of high-quality and authentic books that aided bilingual programs during her teaching career. However, finding a representative range of titles was challenging because there was no concentrated source for bilingual works. “All [publishers] have a few bilingual or Spanish books, but they’re not all in one place… until now,” remarked Kimbrow, highlighting the unique nature of her shop.
Teaching language is one outcome of buying books from Linda Letra, but it is not all about education. The selection of titles supports bilingual families with books that are not biased toward one language or culture and allows families to read together even when they have different primary languages. The store’s partnership with schools is also significant in ensuring all students have representation in the books offered and have texts that are not just translations of English works.
Before opening this new storefront, the business primarily served the education market, selling collections of bilingual and Spanish books directly to schools or through book fairs. The education sales channel will continue to support Linda Letra’s operations, with a portion of the 1000-square-foot NE Glisan shop dedicated to fulfilling large orders. However, as a neighborhood resident, Kimbrow wanted to interact with the community and make the store’s assortment of hard-to-find titles available to a local audience. The store carries many children’s books from independent Latina publishers not always represented in other bookshops. Kimbrow will use the storefront to promote those worthy but lesser-known works, allowing authors to reach new readers who may not know to look for their work.
The shop’s name comes from a phrase Rachel Kimbrow heard while teaching at the American School of Asunción in Paraguay. “Linda Letra is a play on words in Spanish. Linda means pretty or beautiful, and letra means the printed word. So Linda Letra is the beautiful letter,” explained Kimbrow. A fellow teacher at the school would repeatedly instruct the students to use good penmanship with the phrase “Linda Letra,” which stuck with Kimbrow.
The shop’s selection targets early readers through 12 years old, and although the store focuses on English/Spanish bilingualism, it does offer some French books. Additionally, Kimbrow is interested in expanding offerings to meet community demand. The store is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday, and the Grand Opening celebration runs from noon to 3 p.m. on September 16th. That event will feature book signing by local authors Gerardo Calderon and Cathy Camper. Rachel Kimbrow invites people to drop in any time during shop hours or view an even wider selection online at lindaletra.com. The store can support large volume orders and whole collections to meet particular themes.
