Silvergate Media today announced that it has acquired the rights to the award-winning, bilingual picture book series ¡Vamos! and plans to develop it into an animated series for kids and families.
Written and illustrated by award-winning Mexican-American author Raúl the Third (Raúl González III), ¡Vamos! is a series of imaginatively drawn picture books for children, with colors by Elaine Bay, that are told in a combination of both English and Spanish and are published by Versify, an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt publishers.
The first book in the series, ¡Vamos! Let’s Go to the Market, follows the urban adventures of a Coyote, Little Lobo, and his dog Bernabé as the pair make a series of madcap deliveries at a market near the U.S.-Mexico border. It quickly became a critical and commercial hit on its publication in April 2019 and was soon followed by ¡Vamos! Let’s Go Eat the following year, which tells the story of a group of luchadores, professional wrestlers, awaiting battle who are delivered their pre-match meals by Little Lobo and his dog.
The picture books have been greeted with so much enthusiasm that publishers Versify have created a World of ¡Vamos! publishing line with three early readers, two board books and a further picture book in the pipeline.
Silvergate’s Kurt Mueller, who serves as executive producer for many of the company’s highly acclaimed series including Hilda, Octonauts and Chico Bon Bon, will produce the series in partnership with Raúl the Third.
“We’re thrilled to be collaborating with Raúl, a true generational talent, and the fine folks at Versify, to bring ¡Vamos! to TV audiences,” Kurt Mueller, EVP Creative Content, Silvergate Media said, “The books offer a seemingly infinite cast of characters and situations that celebrate frontera culture through a singular artistic lens. Every densely illustrated page is a season’s worth of great TV.”
González commented, “The response to ¡Vamos! in the past two years has been incredible. It’s such a personal project for me as the stories, locations and characters were based on my own childhood experiences, so I’m really thrilled that kids around the world will be able to enjoy these adventures on screen as much as I enjoyed bringing them to life in the books.”
The founding Editor of Versify, Kwame Alexander, who is producing for his Big Sea Entertainment along with partner Arielle Eckstut, added, “¡Vamos! struck a chord with young readers immediately and we have no doubt that an animated series will take the franchise to new heights. Silvergate Media has a strong reputation for producing high quality, original programming based on graphic novels and picture books so we can’t wait to see what the new series will bring.”
