Ukrainian Bilingual Children’s Books

[ 0 ] 08/11/2023 | liza

Ukrainian books / Ukrainian English bilingual books for kids / Ukrainian English dual language books

A Sea of Stars, Where am I from?, Cousins Forever, Happiness Street, Nelly’s Box, and Summer with Grandpa are bilingual books written by Elisavet Arkolaki (me), published on Amazon in 50+ languages, and as of right now, close to 65,000 books and eBooks are in the hands of readers (November 2024, over 15k eBooks have been offered and downloaded for free). These books are perfect for bilingual kids and kids learning Ukrainian or English as their second language. Please note that these books are available in Ukrainian and English, but they’re also published in other languages combined with Ukrainian. They can be purchased from all Amazon stores. Books of mine can also be found or requested in public libraries worldwide. If you’re interested in buying 50+ books for your school, library, group of students, event, etc., you can contact me at liza@maltamum.com for wholesale prices.

Read-aloud videos of these stories in many languages can be watched on thr PEaCH bilingualfamily.eu YouTube channel here. I am an ambassador of this EU, Erasmus+ funded project for bilingual and multilingual families. More information about my background can be found here.

Here’s a video of an event at Lynden Sculpture Garden, USA, as part of the “HOME Multilingual Story Time” project featuring Cousins Forever, which 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.

Here’s also 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.

About my bilingual books

Dual-language or bilingual books are books in which the story is written in two languages. In my books in particular, in the editions with Ukrainian and another language, there’s an illustration on one page, and the story is on the other in Ukrainian and English, Ukrainian and Russian, Ukrainian and German, Ukrainian and French, Ukrainian and Spanish, Ukrainian and Italian, or Ukrainian and Dutch.

Large, black fonts are used against a white background to facilitate readability for early readers and beginner language learners (except books for a younger audience where the background has color), the image on one page and the text on the other, modern themes relevant to bilingual children, bilingual main characters and families that speak more than one language, etc. These books are available in 50+ languages with progressively longer stories from one book to the other. More languages and editions can be added depending on demand.

Amazon USA link
Amazon UK link
Amazon CA link
Amazon AU link
Amazon DE link
Amazon IT link
Amazon ES link
Amazon FR link

Cousins Forever -> Download the accompanying activities in English here.
Happiness Street -> Download the accompanying activities in English here.
Nelly’s Box -> Download the accompanying activities in English here.
Summer with Grandpa -> Download the accompanying activities in English here.
Where am I from? -> Download the accompanying activities in English here.
A Sea of Stars -> Download the accompanying activities in English here.

Where am I from? – Звідки я?