Review: Board book about Bilingualism
“Languages of Our Home” by Marianna Khoury Boyer, illustrated by Andreas Stavropoulos.
This is a 14 page board book written in English about a child’s home/family and life being a bilingual person.
For context, I am very particular with resources I purchase for myself or my practice, and thus resources I recommend. With that said, I really loved this book!
What I like as a bilingual language specialist and mom:
The illustrations are gorgeous.
The readability fits the toddler through early elementary school age-range well. It takes on the voice of a child well, which makes it feel much more personal relatable to that age group (I.e. “This is my family, I love them a ton. Our home is filled with warmth and fun”).
It rhymes which is beneficial for early literacy skills (phonological awareness).
It has a blank space to fill in an example in your target language, which can vary from child to child.
It introduces the child to age-appropriate metabilingual awareness*: the ability to actively think about and talk about the simulators and differences between two or more languages (I.e., “Mama sayin ____, and Dad saying “Hello.” The words sound different, but they mean the same. Whoa!”).
It helps the child name which languages they/their family speaks and become more aware of how they’re used (more metabilingual awareness).
Introduces the child to the benefits of bilingualism: child has many ways to communicate their feelings, languages open up doors/opportunities, languages help us understand people better and better.
Introduces the child to the idea that they have autonomy over when, where, and with whom they get to use each language (I.e., “I can choose which language to speak and share, with my family, at the park, or at daycare.”
Introduces the child that there are many different languages spoken and some families speak some and others speak different ones (I.e., “Arabic, Mandarin, Swahili, and Greek, which languages does your family speak?”
Feedback:
The family is made up of “Mama”, “Dad” and “child.” “Mama” speaks Language A and “Dad” speaks Language B. So the family appears to follow the “One-parent, One-Language” method.
HOWEVER, the book includes a lot of secondary characters in the pictures such as grandparents and other adults who could be aunts, uncles, cousins and friends. This allows some flexibility when reading the book to talk modify it to fit other “family language dynamics” in your “home”/family at large.
For example, if you’re are a “Minority Language At Home (MLAH)” family, you could read it this way “Mama and Dad say _____. Grandma and Grandpa say ________.”
If you’re a “Mixed Languages At Home” family, you could read it this way “Sometimes we say _______. And other times we say _______.”
2. The main characters are white/white-presenting. Though the book does represent some Black and Brown characters in the periphery, I wish it had some more racial and ethnic diversity. If your family is racially diverse, you may not feel identified with the primary illustrations.
*Edit: I spoke with the author and this book was written based on their bilingual and bicultural family. It is impossible to fully capture the racial, cultural, and ethnic diversity within our communities. We are not monolith. I love that the book was written to represent their family. If it doesn’t fully represent yours or a child’s, it still continues to be a great resource as mentioned in my 9 points above.
After reading it to my 5-year-old bilingual daughter, I asked her “What did you like about the book?” and she said “That she’s ‘spy’linguial like me (‘spylingual’ was her way of saying ‘bilingual’ in a silly way). She also really like the main character’s pingüino” (penguin stuffed animal) and laughed hysterically at the fact that it was also given a cup of hot cocoa.
In summary, this is an incredible age-appropriate resource for parents and professionals to foster valuable metacognitive and socio-emotional skills and facilitate discussions around bilingualism! I highly recommend it.
Disclosure: This book is published by a small business owner and author. It was generously gifted to me by the author with no expectation to review it. I am choosing to review it as I believe it would benefit my community. I do not earn commission from this review or your purchase.
*Metabilingual awereness is a term under the umbrella of metalinguisitc awareness. It was coined by Dr. Sonia W. Soltero, Professor of Bilingual-Bicultural Education.