Children’s Books
I’ve always dreamed of writing children’s books. Bilingual stories that take children on journeys through other cultures, peoples’ homes who are different from them. Opening up the world through books. Teaching kids to be curious rather than fearful of people who are different from them. Starting conversations about tolerance and the kind of society we all dream of. (Decidedly not the topics of the beloved books I remember!)
It would be really neat to pick up this dream. Go through the library, read all the stories I can find that try to do what I’d like to write about. Learn about children’s book authors, who is out there doing the kind of work I’d like to do. Find an illustrator. A good place to start would be to begin collecting ideas, writing snippets. This seems far from my academic work, but in fact is not so far since it involves cross cultural learning, potentially immigration, language issues.
Children’s books shaped my thinking so much when I was young. Through stories I grew to know other families, imagine other worlds. I would love to create this for a new generation of kids.