Bilingual Frustrations

I am really pulling my hair out! Here I am a conscientious middle class parent trying to make sure that my kids (in the immediate term Lorelei and then later on the two younger ones) have what they need to be successful academically. First of all, I am trying to find resources to educate myself on how to raise and support readers of Spanish. There are differences between English and Spanish and how literacy is taught and learned natively. I'm not having much luck with that. What else am I trying to have at ready for them? High quality books. I am absolutely astounded at the limited options - let alone high quality. I am irritated that most of what I can find are English books translated to Spanish. I don't have any research (yet) to support my belief, only my own experience as a reader in both English and Spanish, that translations read like  a translation. While grammatically correct and thematically the message is conveyed through translation, there is the lyrical aspect missing. Frankly books written in English, translated to Spanish and then read by me - are always easier to follow because they have the English rhythm. Where are the original Spanish books? Hello?! Is anyone listening?! I don't want to dish up recycled leftovers of English books - I want to deliver authentic stories with original themes. No wonder so many Spanish speaking kids in the US don't ever fully embrace the literate side of the language. Besides the lack of easily available resources, they are second rate batardizations! The message rings loud and clear to me that we can dish up our American fare with a twist for Spanish speakers and they should be happy with that. Damn our arrogance.

A short note on a separate but related frustration - learning to read and write in the native fashion is very different from how most programs are structured for second language learning. Forget about the authentic nature of learning a language. Most of the resources that are available are aimed at this segment of the population - the English speaking kids who are trying to pick up some Spanish vocabulary. Ahhhhhh!!!!!!!!