Projects
Our organization develops different cultural and educational projects to generate spaces for the children, young adults and adults to meet and exchange ideas on literature and other manifestations of the arts.
Digital information platform on books for children and young people and reading promotion
Created in the year 2000, initially Cuatrogatos was a website with magazine format. It is currently conceived as a free information bank for all those interested in literature for children and young people and promoting reading in Spanish, and is one of the most visited sites of its specialty in the Internet in Spanish. It has the collaboration and support of prestigious Iberoamerican authors, illustrators and researchers, and its pages also accommodate texts by university students who write about books for children.
Our cultural and educational web 2.0 platform includes, in addition to the main website, the MiauBlog; Pages on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and Pinterest, and a YouTube channel. Through these networks, Fundación Cuatrogatos provides information to the Hispanic community to encourage children and young people to meet with quality books that provide them with entertainment, enrich their aesthetic look and contribute to their training as human beings.
Collaboration with Miami-Dade Schools
Visiting public schools in Miami to promote the encounter of children and adolescents with writers and literary specialists is one of the main purposes of the Foundation Cuatrogatos. Through these meetings, readings of stories and poems, and creative writing workshops, we seek to foster a taste for reading in Spanish among the new generations. These activities are becoming more and more important, given Miami-Dade County's focus on bilingual education and the teaching of Spanish. Most of these visits are conducted in coordination with the Miami-Dade County Public School System's Bilingual Education Department.
The Cuatrogatos Foundation also collaborates with the Miami-Dade Public Schools in its professional development programs for teachers in the areas of reading, writing and literature in Spanish and in the organization of the literary contest ¡I like the Spanish !, that every school year Prize the best stories and poems written in Spanish by children and young people of public schools.
Fiesta de la Lectura / The Reading Festival
This great event is held annually every October in Miami, with the aim of promoting literature and reading in Spanish. Since its first edition, held in 2013, The Reading Festival has not stopped growing and is currently - according to the newspaper El Nuevo Herald - "one of the most important events dedicated to highlighting the Spanish language in the Hispanic Heritage Month in South Florida".
Its varied program is aimed primarily at children and young adults, but not forgetting adult audiences, ranging from visits by writers and literary workshops in public schools in Miami, to recitals of poetry, book presentations, theater, music and exhibitions. There are also seminars, aimed at parents and teachers, with the purpose of encouraging reading in the new generations. Reading Festival is held not only for members of the Hispanic community of Miami, but also for all those children, youth and adults who study and speak Spanish as a second language.
As part of the event, the literary cards of the Tris-Tras collection are distributed free of charge, with illustrations and texts by outstanding Ibero-American creators of children's books.
To develop this annual day, the Cuatrogatos Foundation has had the support of important cultural and educational institutions and companies in Miami.
Cuatrogatos Foundation Award
The Fundación Cuatrogatos Award was established in 2014 to contribute to the dissemination and reading of high quality books created by Ibero-American writers and illustrators. Each year, after reading, analyzing and discussing a wide and representative sample of children's and young people's fiction books, published in Spanish by small and large publishers of Iberoamerica and the United States, a readers' committee selects the winning titles of the Fundación Cuatrogatos Award.
These are 20 books highly recommended for their literary and plastic values that, according to our institution, deserve to have the greatest diffusion. By giving them this recognition, we want to contribute to reaching as many homes, schools, libraries and other spaces as possible where the young readers can meet with works of the highest quality. Recognition has become one of the most important awards in this field.
To disseminate the winning and finalist works of the Fundación Cuatrogatos Prize, a digital brochure is published every year, which also includes a list of 90 books recommended for their quality.
Seminar on Children's Literature
Since 2014, the Seminar on Children's Literature and Reading, co-produced by the Fundación Cuatrogatos and Miami Book Fair, has been held in the framework of the Book Fair in Miami. This free event is aimed at parents, teachers, librarians and other adults interested in books for children and young people and the promotion of reading.
The main themes of the seminar have been To read in Spanish! (2014), Books: spaces of freedom (2015) and A world of readers: readers for the world (2016). The program has had the participation of creators and scholars of children's literature as Ana María Shua. Perla Suez and Luis María Pescetti (Argentina); Veronica Murguía, María Baranda and Ramón Iván Suárez Caamal (Mexico); Gustavo Martín Garzo, Mariasun Landa, Alejandro Palomas, Juan Kruz Igerabide, Pedro C. Cerrillo, Paloma Jover and Miren Agur Meabe (Spain); Afonso Cruz (Portugal), Fanuel Díaz (Venezuela); David Unger (Guatemala); Jorge Galán (El Salvador) and Eddy Díaz Douza, Daisy Valls, Chely Lima and Cristina Rebull (Cuba-United States).
Bookcrossing I'm a Traveling Book
Each summer, the Cuatrogatos Foundation "leaves" hundreds of books in Spanish in different public spaces of the city of Miami, so that they are "adopted" and read by members of the community.
The books of different genres and themes that are used in this bookcrossing program are new and carry a label. It invites people to find them to read them and then put them in the hands of other readers to continue "traveling." The books, intended for readers of different ages, are left in commercial centers, hospitals, parks, theaters, restaurants, beaches and other spaces of the city.
In order to develop this project to promote reading, which led to the meeting of the Spanish-speaking community with works from different genres, countries and times, our foundation has been supported by companies such as Lectorum Publications, Spanish Publishers, Penguin Random House, Santillana USA And Eriginal Books.
Research on the production of books in Spanish for children and young people in Spanish
As a result of the ongoing study and evaluation of books for children and young people published in Spanish by publishers in Latin America, Spain and the United States, the Cuatrogatos Foundation produces reviews of recommended children's and youth books and disseminates them through its digital platform information. It also prepares reading guides and lists of significant works, to stimulate the reading of books of the highest quality, and advises institutions for the purchase of quality Spanish books. Another important product of this work is the award each year of the Fundación Cuatrogatos Award to 20 outstanding books of Ibero-American creators directed to children and young people.
As a result of its investigative work, the Foundation Cuatrogatos has published the books:
- The adventure of the word, by Sergio Andricaín. Miami: Fundación Cuatrogatos, Fundación SM, 2013.
- Roots and dreams. 50 books for children and young people of Latin authors in the United States. Coordinators: Sergio Andricaín, Pedro C. Cerrillo and Antonio Orlando Rodríguez. Cuenca, Spain: CEPLI, Foundation Cuatrogatos, Editions of the University of Castilla-La Mancha, 2014.
- Two shores and one ocean: 25 Ibero-American poetry authors for children and young people. Coordinators: Sergio Andricaín and Pedro C. Cerrillo. Cuenca, Spain: CEPLI, Foundation Cuatrogatos, Editions of the University of Castilla-La Mancha, 2015.