How pet chickens inspired Jimmy Fallon, Jennifer Lopez to teach kids Spanish in ‘Con Pollo’
Jimmy Fallon and Jennifer Lopez have a new gig teaching Spanish in the duo’s first literary collaboration, “Con Pollo: A Bilingual Playtime Adventure” (Feiwel & Friends, 48 pp., out Tuesday), illustrated by Andrea Campos.
Fallon is no novice when it comes to writing children’s books – in addition to “Con Pollo” he has published five, all notably bestsellers on USA TODAY’s Best Selling Books list. But this project is a bit different. The late night host has authored a bilingual picture book with Lopez that aims to teach children words in Spanish.
Fallon told USA TODAY that the idea for a co-written children’s book came after a suggestion from Lopez that the pair collaborate on something outside of NBC’s “The Tonight Show,” on which Fallon has hosted Lopez a number of times.
“(I was) thinking of every idea I could think of like, ‘Would she ever do a song with me? Do I do a cameo in her movies?'” Fallon says.
Finally, it dawned on him: A children’s book. “She’s a great mom. She loves her kids. And I (had) just written a couple of children’s books,” Fallon says. “I’m like, ‘maybe that’s a good book idea.'”
Fallon’s other children’s books include “Nana Loves You More,” “Your Baby’s First Word Will Be Dada,” “Everything Is Mama,” “This Is Baby” and “5 More Sleeps ‘Til Christmas.”
After several admittedly “terrible” book concepts – the creative process can be hard on all of us – Fallon took inspiration from a pandemic fad he was noticing during the time they were brainstorming: He noticed on social media that people were keeping chickens as pets. He started there, going back and forth with Lopez via email.
The late-night host started with the idea of chickens being friends and later in the thought process got to “Con Pollo,” which translates to “with chicken.” It would be fun, he said, to title the book “Con Pollo” and make it about the fun things you can do with a chicken. The showcasing of fun things to do “Con Pollo” lent itself to pairing what you could do “Con Pollo” in English with the Spanish translation, effectively teaching young readers new words in the language.
Lopez liked it.
Pollo, a “friendly little chicken,” is shown through the picture book having fun adventures. She loves to play “and play and play and play all day.” As the book progresses, it shares Spanish terms for what Pollo is doing on pages opposite the descriptions in English.
“Do you want to go to the beach? OR Go to la playa con Pollo?” one spread reads. Some pages explain pronunciations. “Con means ‘with’ and sounds a little like ‘cone.’ There’s so many things you don’t have to do alone,” another two-page spread reads with an illustration of “Pollo” with fro-yo.
The book also includes an index of terms with phonetics and color coding.
“I’m so excited to launch my first children’s book and it’s even more special to collaborate with Jimmy!” Lopez says in a press release.
Fallon is also excited, though the achievement comes with some reflection.
“I wish that I kind of took other languages more serious when I was kid, it also wasn’t really offered where I grew up,” he says. “I went to a public school, and they did their best and (I) actually did end up taking Spanish in high school.”
Fallon dedicated the book to his high school Spanish teachers. But he does wish that he was encouraged to take and that he took an interest in languages earlier. That’s part of the motivation behind the book.
“I’m learning still, I know a little bit now,” he says, noting he’s starting to learn through his daughters, who are currently learning Spanish. “I just think it’s important that (the book provides) kind of a kind of an easy way to learn. It’s not too many words. There’s only 10 words in this book. And if you learn those 10 words… there you go, you know 10 words.”
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