Books in Spanish: not necessarily Spanish books

Something I've noticed while looking for library selections to recommend to my Spanish teacher mother or to read for myself is the tendency for libraries to stock a high percentage of English books translated into Spanish, instead of more Spanish books by Spanish and Latin American authors. And just now I read VOYA's most recent article on Noteworthy Books in Spanish for Teens, and only 2 of the 15 selections were originally written in Spanish. Really? Is there such a dearth of books that actually were written in Spanish for teens that you could only find 2 to put in the list?

It's perfectly true that a lot of kids reading these books would be attracted to these translations either because they'd like to practice their Spanish reading skills on something familiar or because they are Spanish speakers who want to read what their English-speaking friends are reading. It's entirely possible that authors and publishers in Spain haven't caught sight of the beneficial tsunami that is Young Adult literature. And it's probably easier (not to mention cheaper) to deal with publishers in the United States than to search out contacts and titles in Spain or Latin America (especially if none of your staff has the language skills). I don't really know how it's done in our system here. The last time I was in an Acquisitions department was a couple years ago at CMU.

Still, it's something I notice. I can't come down too hard on the issue because it's not like NOTHING but translations of NYT bestsellers are available. It just makes me want to know more about the whole process of developing the collection, yannow?