Win a copy of Where am I from? + a read-aloud of Happiness Street

[ 0 ] 16/07/2020 | liza

Hi friends,

How are you? Here, Norway lifted the traveling ban, and we are soon going to visit our family in Greece. Quite an unexpected surprise, as we had already canceled the whole trip! How are things at your end? I hope you’re coping and that things are getting better <3?

2 YEARS AGO….

In other news, on the 16th of July in 2018, my journey in publishing officially started. This date marked the launch of a Kickstarter campaign for the ambitious plan, of creating together with the public, a children’s book illustrated with street art unique to this project. Facebook reminded me of this photo, which is the very first one I received! That wall, later on, had to be abandoned, and Platon started painting the book cover again from scratch somewhere else, in a more quiet place where he could concentrate on the task (lots of passerby). And to celebrate this…

WIN A COPY OF WHERE AM I FROM?

Participate in a book challenge hosted by Żebbuġ Learning Studio and Little Bookworms Malta. You can find all the details about the competition and take part here. The challenge is open to everyone, all around the world, and it’s very simple :). All the best of luck!

Christine Bartolo is a mother, and trained teacher who also specializes in travel literature, information science, language pedagogy, and storytelling, has to say. She has created Little Bookworms where parents and educators are offered guidance to continue finding joy and connection with their children. These are her words: “Reading with our children is one of life’s little pleasures. However, it is not always as easy as this may sound. Sometimes, being guided on what to read, how to read, and what follow up activities to do with your child is all that you need for you and your child to have an enjoyable experience. Since books offer the opportunity to explore language and because language is essential to human communication, our relationship as parents with our children is enriched. Through books, children also develop their literacy, numeracy, and cognitive skills. The book challenges on social media motivate parents, educators, authors, and children to read and share stories together.“

HAPPINESS STREET BOOK PREVIEW AND READ-ALOUD

Ηere you can watch a video preview of the book, and here you can listen to a read-aloud by the wonderful Angel Greaves. If you’d also like to read-aloud any of my books online for little ones to be entertained during these times, you have my permission. Just tag me, please :).

HAPPINESS STREET SOON TO BE PUBLISHED IN SPANISH

Due to high demand, this book will also be published in a Spanish edition and in a bilingual English-Spanish edition. Would you like it to be published in more languages? Hit reply and let me know.

FACEBOOK HIGHLIGHT – A VIDEO IN MY GROUP

Here I’m showing on camera two hand-painted drafts I received from the artist Eva Rodriguez, who illustrated a new children’s book of mine titled Sunny’s Magical Headband, and which will be published by Faraxa Publishing in Malta this fall. What you see here is one of her lovely illustrations in full color. If you’re on Facebook, join me there as well as it’s a bit more interactive :).

PEaCH PROJECT – CAN YOU HELP?

This message if from Rita Rosenback, one of the contributors to the guidebook I curated, and which most of you here have read, How to Raise Confident Multicultural Children. I’m proud to be selected as one of the first volunteers to read and evaluate the first draft of “How to raise a bilingual child“, which upon its completion, will be distributed for free to everyone: “I am participating in an EU-wide, Erasmus+ funded project called “PEaCH – Promoting and preserving Europe’s cultural and linguistic heritage through the empowerment of bilingual children and families”. The first draft of our guide “How to raise a bilingual child” has been sent out to evaluators. We are working on the accompanying videos and the collection of language materials is underway. We are still looking for volunteers to participate in collecting and evaluating language materials in all 24 official EU languages. Interested? Please send an email to rita@multilingualparenting.com and I will send you more information.”

FROM THE ARCHIVES

The mismatched socks and the multicultural child – “Erik (5 years old) grows up in a home which is a little bit different than others in the small city of Norway that we’ve been living during the last 2 years. His mum (me) is a native speaker in a language that his dad (Roy) doesn’t speak. His dad is a native speaker in a language that his mum doesn’t speak and which she only recently started to decode. There is a third language at home, which is considered the ‘family’ language, and which is Erik’s 3rd language in terms of fluency. Dad grew up in Norway, mummy in Greece, Erik was born in Malta and Nelly, his younger sister (2 years) in Norway.” Read it in full here.

I wish you a lovely weekend ahead, and don’t forget to take part in the book competition :)!

With my warmest regards,
//Elisavet Arkolaki (aka Liza)