Inside LA Librería ’s new West Adams location, a hush falls over the thick crowd of multigenerational families. Angelica Sauceda, a librarian at Anaheim Public Libraries, faces an audience of young readers ready to hear the bilingual story of “La Siesta Perfecta.” “Es hora,” she calls out.
It’s story time. On Sunday, the only children’s Spanish-language bookstore in Los Angeles invited customers to celebrate the grand opening of their biggest storefront yet. Back in 2012, founders Chiara Arroyo and Celene Navarrete set out with the goal of providing quality, imported Spanish-language titles to local schools and bilingual families.
And their newly opened 2,400-square-foot location marks the moment they have been patiently waiting for — the ability to bring their community together in a space that finally fits. “When we were an appointment-only showroom, people were always knocking on the door trying to get in. When we opened a small storefront, we didn’t have enough space for events.
Most of the time, all the kids would have to be inside and all the parents wait outside,” said Arroyo. “We needed more space to move.” Arroyo and Navarrete first crossed paths at their children’s elementary school, Edison Language Academy.
Navarrete, a professor of coding and computer information systems at Cal State Dominguez Hills from Mexico, and Arroyo, a former film critic from Spain, both volunteered at the school’s book fair. Given the dual-immersion aspect o.