Thank you!

On this page, I would like to thank all of you who have purchased books I’ve written and published.
I’d also like to thank, name, and link back to the organizations, libraries, schools, and teachers who have supported my work and used my books. The listings are in chronological order.

If you’ve supported my work and you’re not listed here, kindly contact me to add you.

Andrea Small, English as an Additional Language Teacher, Chignecto Family. She wrote to me, “I have enjoyed your books with many of my EAL students and their classmates. Some of my students have taken turns reading their language as I read the English to the class. I especially like Nelly’s Box. Many boxes have been made in classes I visit after reading the book. I also do a lesson where I read Cousins Forever. Then, students draw a simple picture, and anyone in the class who is able to write in a different language labels the picture.”


On World Book Day, parents were invited to read stories to the children in class at the Lumphanan school in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Silvia Fiddes OrtizPerea, who works as an English Second Language Teacher at the EAL Service Aberdeenshire Council, is a member of SATEAL and a board member of Bilingual Family (the continuation of the Erasmus+ PEaCH project) read Nelly’s Box – LA Caja de Nelly in English and Spanish to promote the Spanish language to her daughter’s, Seileach, class. In her words, “The class was very impressed as Seileach Alba is a character in the story. The teacher loved the idea of creating boxes like the kids in the book and plans to do the same with her students (click here for the free PDF with activities). The class loved the book so much that I donated a copy to the school library.” Silvia also narrated the story in Spanish, which you can find here on YouTube.

Moreover, Silvia told me that she and Rita Rosenback did a workshop about the charity Bilingual Family at the University of Edinburgh SATEAL* conference on the 22nd of March. There, they had the privilege to have a stall to display their material, including books written and published by other PEaCH ambassadors: Ute Limacher-Riebold and Ana Miranda‘s The Toolbox for Multilingual Families, Yoshito Darmon-Shimamori‘s The Parents’ Guide to Raising Multi-literate Children, Mary Pat O Malley‘s Multilingual Children, Rita Rosenback‘s Bringing Up a Bilingual Child, and the one I’ve curated How to Raise Confident Multicultural Children which you can read for free here.

*SATEAL is the National Body for EAL in Scotland, and it exists to foster and develop the teaching of English as an Additional Language in a multi-ethnic environment.

Lusophone Calendar Art Contest for Kids, organized by the Institute for Portuguese and Lusophone World Studies (IPLWS) at Rhode Island College in collaboration with the Day of Portugal and Portuguese Heritage in RI, Inc. More info here.

Invictus Games Canada 2025. They purchased all my bilingual books in 18 languages for a mini library at their Nations Home. At the end of the event, all the books were donated to the competitors to take home with them, and any books left over went to local underprivileged schools. More info here and here.

ILT Education – Sweden, Norway, Finland, Germany, UK. On the 20th of December 2024, I signed a contract with ILT Education that will make my books accessible to even more kids, language teachers, and classrooms! All my bilingual books in English-Swedish, English-Finnish, English-German, and English-Norwegian will be available on Polylino (and Polyglutt in Sweden) in eBook and audio formats and English-Spanish in eBook formats. ILT Education was founded in Sweden in 1990, and since then, they’ve been committed to making learning materials accessible to everyone. They are the market-leading provider of multilingual digital teaching services in Sweden – 285 of the 290 regions use one of its services – so they are trusted experts in the field regarding effective digital teaching solutions. More info here.

The International School of Piraeus purchased my books in many languages for their school library. “At ISP, we are a multicultural community that values and respects all cultures, languages, traditions, customs, and practices. From today, our international students will have the opportunity to visit our library, which has been enriched with books by Ms Elisavet Arkolaki. These are available in Ukrainian, Russian, Chinese, Albanian, Arabic, French, German, and Spanish, with parallel translations in Greek and English. We sincerely thank the author and publisher, Ms Elisavet Arkolaki, for her outstanding contributions and unwavering commitment to supporting multicultural families abroad.” More info here. Here you find videos from when they celebrated International Mother Language Day on the 21st of February 2025.

Dr. Ute Limacher-Riebold from https://utesinternationallounge.com/ and Chryssa Oikonomidou from Paidokipos, a language school in Copenhagen, Denmark. We’ve known each other for many years now, and they’ve just launched a new project and website https://multilingual-families.com/, where I’m proud to be a contributor. They’ve supported my books and work since the early days of my career as an author; I have too many reasons to count to be grateful and say “thank you”. Chryssa actively uses the books at Paidokipos.

Yoshito Darmon-Shimamori from Library 4 Multilinguals, in this video addressed the topic of “Reading Bilingual Books, or Not Reading Bilingual Books?” together with Ute Limacher-Riebold and said that “Some people love bilingual books, others don’t…… We explain how to use them with children of different ages (from toddlers to adults) and for different purposes.” “Happiness Street” is one of the books mentioned in their video. He also hosts the annual FREE ONLINE LIVE EVENT ON MULTILINGUAL LITERACY, and my work has been featured there.

Thank you Soo.

Malta’s National Literacy Agency/L-Aġenzija Nazzjonali tal-Litteriżmu and David Muscat, Head of National Literacy Agency. They’ve supported my work since the publication of my first book, “Where am I from?” and they’ve continued to do so till now. They’ve purchased books that have been gifted to students at schools, while many more are available at their literacy resources centres and school libraries in Malta and Gozo. The books are also used by teachers teaching multilingual learners in primary schools.

The Multilingual Library (DFB) department of the National Library of Norway in Oslo purchased my books in several languages. Their role is to support other Norwegian libraries in providing library services to a multilingual and multicultural population. The most important way they do this is by acquiring collections in many languages and cataloging and making those collections available for inter-library lending. More info can be found here.

Germaine Moran Koskina, PhD, Adjunct Professor and 2-Way Dual Language Bilingual Teacher used “Where am I from?” with her students at school and mentioned my books and work while presenting at a conference in the summer of 2024. More info and details on how she used this specific book here and/or here on my blog.

The Okotoks Public Library in Alberta, Canada, is expanding their shelves to include stories that reflect the diverse voices and cultures of their community, and as part of their Inclusive Reads Initiative selected to purchase “Nelly’s Box” among other books. More info here.

There are many libraries worldwide that carry my titles. From what I can see here, there are many entries on WorldCat, each one clickable and showing many more listings in libraries in the USA, Australia, Canada, and more.

“Cousins Forever” made it to the ESOL Advantage* language school’s list of “Great ESL Books for Kids (2024)” by Mark Pedrin! In this post, you can check out all the books he recommends for ESL (English as a Second Language).

*ESOL stands for English for Speakers of Other Languages. It encompasses educational programs aimed at helping non-native English speakers learn English and improve their English skills.

I don’t often receive direct emails from readers, so when I do, it always feels special. G. discovered “Cousins Forever” at the San Diego County Library – Bonita-Sunnyside Branch in California, USA, and read it with her son and niece; two cousins who enjoyed reading the book together and played the “Word Swap” game. I’m sharing her email here with permission and the kids’ paintings, depicting their favorite words: “Love” and “Snake” here.

Charlotte West-Lamorinière at BilinguaSing in South Kent, UK recommends and actively uses “Nelly’s Box” for her classes. In her words, “The children loved it!  It’s the second year I read it in clubs; I strongly recommend it to language teachers!” More here.

Wisconsin Ukrainians Inc. board members Halyna Zdyrko Salapata and Karina Tweedell, together with Lynden Sculpture Garden, USA, organized a Ukrainian English story time at Lynden Sculpture Garden HOME World Refugee Day activities on Saturday, June 22nd, 2015. A librarian from Milwaukee Public Library joined them to read “Nelly’s Box.” The storytime ended with a craft activity related to the book. More info about this event is here and here.

Plymouth Babylab at the University of Plymouth often uses books of mine for their projects and collaborations with language schools. As an example, here’s a video of kids of various ages reading Nelly’s Box in English and Romanian at the Centrul Educațional Arici Pogonici in collaboration with the Plymouth Babylab at the University of Plymouth, which might give you some ideas on how to use bilingual books in a classroom. Here’s another link on my blog and another one here.

Dr. Mandy Stewart and the LEAMOS staff included “Cousins Forever” on the Texas Women’s University website for the Master’s program in multilingual and multicultural studies as a recommended book for multicultural reading. More info here.

Araceli Calle-Fernández is a Spanish language teacher who works in Sweden. She was the one who suggested I contact ILT Education and make them accessible to more students. Moreover, she translated the PDF with the accompanying activities for “Summer with Grandpa” into Spanish! She wrote to me […] Thank you for writing wonderful stories about children and people living abroad. You really understand our experiences and feelings. […]” You can download the PDF in Spanish here. Muchas gracias Araceli!

“Nelly’s Box” was gifted to a child in Mrs. McSheffrey‘s class at Stevenson Elementary on Read Across America Day. A photo of it can be seen here.

Rutland Libraries, UK. Nelly’s Box was selected and featured in their Ukrainian language collection. More info here.

The CALIFORNIA reading & literature project featured and recommended “Summer with Grandpa”. More info here.

Lynden Sculpture Garden, USA, created and hosted the “HOME Multilingual Story Time” project, which featured several books throughout a span of many months, including “Cousins Forever”. I’ll share the link here as it might work as an inspiration for more school and library projects. The story was read in English and Ukrainian by Halyna Salapata from Wisconsin for Ukraine, and the storytelling session ended with an art activity from Lynden art educator Claudia Orjuela in English and Spanish, where local kids were invited to send her their paintings and words to play the “Word swap” game.

The Eagle Pass Public Library in Texas, USA, hosted an event called the “Online Spanish Story Hour.” Beatriz Valdes read “Primas para siempre” in Spanish, and Isabella Mora read “Cousins Forever” in English (the same book, two languages). You can hear them reading the story here and here.

Kris Reguera, a polyglot language teacher based in the USA, was the first to review the English-Spanish edition of “Where am I from?” on Amazon.com. More info here.

Claire Annette Noland, a children’s librarian, reading specialist, and author of easy readers, board books, and picture books for young children, reviewed and recommended “Where am I from?” More info here.

There are public kindergartens in Greece that use the book Nelly’s Box in their classrooms. More info in Greek can be found here.

Insegnando l’inglese alla scuola media, a language school in Italy, uses my books with students. More info here.

Dr Sara Louise Wheeler wrote about “Yr haf â thad-cu – Summer with Grandpa” and my work in Welsh, here.

The teacher behind Bigiagiakids used Nelly’s Box in her kindergarten class in Greece (Greek language). More info here.

Worlds of Words: Center of Global Literacies and Literatures (University of Arizona); Twelve books about cousins were featured on the blog of Worlds of Words: Center of Global Literacies and Literatures (University of Arizona) in January ‘23, all published by publishers some as big as Abrams, Scholastic, and Penguin, and my independently published title “Cousins Forever” is also listed there! More info here.

Kalli Thermos Xanthopoulos is a Greek language teacher based in the USA who teaches at Saint Demetrios Greek-American School and has used most of my books in her classes. More info here and here and here and here.

Sophia Zoraki is a teacher and author of children’s books. She has created activities for some of my books, which you can find here, and has worked with “Nelly’s Box” with elementary school kids.

Mundo Beyondo Spanish as a Second Language have been using my books with their students and have uploaded narrations in Spanish on YouTube.

I’ve been an ambassador of PEaCH bilingualfamily.eu, an Erasmus+ co-funded project for bilingual and multilingual families. Fellow ambassadors, some of them teachers, narrated my stories in various languages, and we uploaded these videos with their narrations on PEaCH’s YouTube channel here.

German language teacher Irini Kemerli uses my books with her students. A photo here.

Ana Elisa Miranda, a teacher at a school in Belgium and fellow PEaCH Ambassador who narrated “Nelly’s Box” in Brazilian Portuguese, sent me a photo here.

Marina Ploubi, a fellow author who published a book in Greek titled “Το βράδυ κοιμόμαστε όλοι”, hid “Happiness Street” within its pages. More info here.

Dina Theochari is a German language teacher who purchased the Greek-German edition of “Happiness Street” to read at home with her kids and at school with her students. She then came up with the most amazing, simple, and easy-to-implement activity that serves several language-learning goals while the kids are having fun and being creative. More info here.

The Olive Tree Greek Education and Cultural Center shared a fun project they did after reading “Happiness Street.” These are some of the students’ paintings representing their own #happinessstreet summer memories. More info here.

Leanna Guillen Mora from All Done Monkey and the founder of Multicultural Kid Blogs recommends “Happiness Street” for Spanish language learning. Click on the link to read Leanna’s bilingual English-Spanish picture book recommendations for that summer.

“Happiness Street – Calle Felicidad is a lovely picture book that celebrates summer and family. In it, a child looks back on her summer at grandmother’s house by the beach. That magical place truly is “happiness street,” as the children have named it. The paintings of the book are gorgeous. The bilingual version is a great opportunity to practice colors in Spanish! The story concludes when Mother comes to take the children back home, and they experience the bittersweet emotions that come with the end of vacation, though it is tempered by the promise of next summer on Happiness Street. A lovely way to celebrate the transition from vacation.“

Andromachi Kalivrousi is a kindergarten teacher who also crafted the PDF activities for my books “Happiness Street” and “Cousins Forever,” which you can find here. Here’s a post in Greek showcasing how she used “Happiness Street” at her school.

Spanish language teacher Zia Lidiette (B.Ed), based in the USA, chose “Calle Felicidad”, the Spanish edition of “Happiness Street”, as her favorite children’s book in Spanish and used it to teach an online class on Outschool.

Gjurme Iliriane is an Albanian Heritage Club in Hampton, UK that uses my books.

Christina Konstantoudaki is an early childhood educator who has worked at a bilingual kindergarten, an author, and the owner of www.paperkittens.gr, a bookstore. She recommends my books and is the sole seller of my books in Greece.

Anna Olen, a Librarian, wrote about “Happiness Street” in Greek here.

Mariam Albatool School, Naxxar Elementary School, St. Paul’s Bay Elementary School, and San Anton Elementary School in Malta welcomed me for school visits during the book launch of “Where am I from?” More info and pictures are here.

Malta Libraries supported the publication of my first children’s book.

The Vestfold libraries in Norway, and specifically Aase Wivestad, Libraries Counsellor, Vestfold Municipality, have supported my work since the publication of my first book. They were among the first sponsors of “Where am I from?”