La RAE para lectores curiosos

It's not always easy to answer a child's questions, and how would we explain to them what the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) is, its purpose, and how it has functioned for over three hundred years? How would we make them understand that "It cleans, it fixes, and it gives splendor" doesn't refer to a cleaning product but to the motto that emerged from eleven proposals to ensure the Spanish language didn't lose its luster? This is the challenge the author set for herself, and the result is a short and engaging essay for young people and adults, full of irony and humor. A text peppered with anecdotes, titles, and figures surrounding an institution that holds more than ten million slips of paper in its files and safeguards the mother tongue of more than five hundred million speakers worldwide. A book featuring illustrious names, from the Archpriest of Hita to Ramón Menéndez Pidal; from Antonio de Nebrija to María Moliner; from Lope de Vega to Blanca de los Ríos; from El Cid Campeador (or rather, a piece of his skull) to Emilia Pardo Bazán; from Cervantes to Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda.