Daniela Palacios began her bilingual children’s book business as a high school junior at an entrepreneurship academy. During the pandemic, while learning remotely, she and her then 7-year-old brother, Xavier, spent a lot of time at home. Unlike Daniela, Xavier’s first language wasn’t Spanish, and she noticed him feeling left out of family jokes and conversations.
“For me as an older sister, that was really heartbreaking and something that I really wanted to help him make sure that he stayed connected to my family’s culture, to our native tongue,” Palacios said.
She tried using Spanish books to help him, but they were overwhelming. While searching for bilingual books, she came up short, so Palacios decided to create her own. What started as a project for her brother grew into Para KIDS!, a resource to help other children stay connected to their heritage through bilingual storytelling.
This Read Across America week, Palacios is spreading the word through multiple workshops booked at schools in New York City. Their tagline: “We show kids that being bilingual is a superpower.”
A quest beyond her brother
Growing up, Palacios had no idea this bilingual book gap existed.
“It was very disheartening to see that, within the publishing industry, there was no representation and no care, necessarily, for bilingual families or families that want to raise bilingual children,” she said.
While her initial purpose was to write a book for her brother, as students started to transition back to in-person learning, it became bigger than her family. Palacios connected with other parents and realized their children faced similar struggles as Xavier. She began writing her first bilingual book in 2021. It became the first product in what ultimately became her business, Para KIDS!
A softer “Shark Tank”
Later that year, Palacios entered a pitch competition at her school that would award $3K in seed money for the winner’s start-up.
To prepare, Palacios studied pitch competitions like “Shark Tank.” She learned the importance of storytelling beyond one key demographic. She would make audiences connect with core values of the business — empowerment through culture and language learning — even if they didn’t have kids or were monolingual.
The business name reflected this: her products and services would be bilingual, and the focus would be on creating content for (“para”) kids. Palacios soon crafted the vision statement, logo, and social media pages.
Beyond language barriers, beyond books
Meanwhile, Palacios poured these values into building her first book. She asked her high school teachers for feedback. And her brother became a tester for her target audience, giving feedback on everything from dialogue to story development.
Palacios won the pitch competition. Judges even pushed Para KIDS! further, suggesting that she explore services beyond books, which is what led her to incorporate workshops.
She says knowing that bilingual books exist can be powerful and reaffirm a student’s identity and experiences. “And then being able to actually have full exposure to that is obviously going to be even more powerful, and is really just going to make students feel like they belong, and just make them much more excited about learning in general,” Palacios said.
Palacios officially launched Para KIDS! in 2022. Since then, she has published two bilingual books and partnered with schools to lead bilingual literacy workshops.
Building bridges with her brother
Her first book was Sara’s New Country and New Friend (El nuevo país y la nueva amiga de Sara) which was published in May 2023. The pitch competition prize money financed the work of an illustrator she found at a local college.
The back cover reads: “Friendship has no barriers!” (“La amistad no tiene barreras!”) It was key that the main characters have different backgrounds: one recently immigrated from Ecuador, the other is Mexican American, and they both have a lot to learn about each other’s cultures. It was inspired by Palacios’ childhood in Ironbound, a diverse neighborhood in New Jersey. Representing and celebrating these kinds of exchanges was also crucial during a large influx of new immigrant students to New York and New Jersey.
Palacios continued going to her brother for help. While working on her second book (published in June 2024), Xavier suggested adding a character who was a boy to make the story more inclusive. She introduced Ricardo, a Brazilian American, and saw greater engagement from boys during her Para KIDS! storytimes.
“He is definitely someone that I always like to talk to, just to get more of his perspective, because I think that it’s really important,” Palacios said.
The future of Para KIDS!
Palacios is excited to continue working with elementary schools — and her brother — to share these bilingual resources.
“I really see myself in a lot of these younger students — or I see my younger brother — and being able to just make sure that they feel empowered and that they feel represented in the stories that we read to them at school, and just hearing maybe their native language or language that they hear often,” she said.
She also wants to expand the business by developing new products in the toy industry to support bilingual education. Another goal: to increase representation among women of color and Latino youth entrepreneurs. Now a junior at Columbia University, Palacios has multiple pitch competitions under her belt. These experiences have made the gaps in representation obvious.
“I really care about making sure that more … young people of color … feel like they are able to create their own business, their own product, their own service,” Palacios said.
Visit their website to learn more about Para KIDS! here.
Follow them on Instagram at @parakidsbooks.
