Spanish dvds or children’s books for gcse prep

[Walkingplodding]

Hi, please could anyone recommend any Spanish dvds or children’s books for my DC to practice Spanish listening/reading over the holidays? They are going into year 10. French teacher has recommended le petit Nicolas for French but I don’t know the equivalent for Spanish. Thank you!

Hello, I second petit Nicolas for French! It's very sweet and perfect level for GCSE prep.
Afraid I don't know an equivalent for Spanish (hopefully someone will be along shortly with recommendations), and perhaps you know this already but on many streaming platforms, particularly Netflix and Disney, you can change the audio language, and French and Spanish are usually catered for (it's patchy though, different shows are distributed in different language combinations).

For learners, this dubbed language can be fractionally easier to follow, and DC can pick something where she/he is familiar with the plot and might even know parts of the English dialogue by heart, and that can be extremely beneficial when trying to get into the rhythm of the language for listening exercises, and pick up useful phrases that they can whip out in an oral exam. You can put the subtitles on, either in English or in the target language, and watch over and over to get the full benefit of all the vocabulary contained in an episode/film. Apologies if this is overkill and you've already been doing this!

Bon courage and mucha suerte to your DC!

My DDs loved watching an Argentinian teen soap called "Go! Vive a tu manera" (Netflix) to prepare for Spanish GCSE. It's about some teens at a performing arts school and their successes and romantic rivalries (a bit like Fame in the 1980s). It's fun to watch (even for me) but very innocent. We had it in the original Spanish, but with English subtitles so that they could understand unfamiliar words. Being Argentinian, the Spanish that they speak does have a few differences in pronunciation and vocabulary, but nothing major.

Beware that, in addition to differences in vocabulary and pronunciation, quite a few of the verbal forms will be different.

Tv shows on Netflix:

Cable girls is good and is jn Spanish Spanish. My Spanish is not gcse level but I could understand lots.

I liked narcos but it has a lot of violence and swearing. Ditto Senorita 89.

Netflix does have a whole Spanish section which you can search. A lot of stuff is also dubbed into Spanish - eg US office.

Anyone got any recommendations for similar but in German?

Thanks so much for the suggestions! And glad to know we are on the correct lines with petit Nicholas!

Harry potter books in spanish

Thank you - I did not know that! So I guess it's best to stick to programmes from Spain, rather than the Latin American ones.

If I were to watch an English-language programme on Netflix that had been dubbed in Spanish, would that be Castillian Spanish or South American Spanish, do you know?

I think you can choose for the dubbed ones. For the ones in original version, you would be able to see the country of origin.
Dont get me wrong - accents and expressions also vary within Spain, it is not a question of South American vs Spain. It just happens that the use of verbs is different in Argentina.
Also to note, Duolingo uses South American Spanish