Last year in May, I got a pleasant surprise: I won a book in a giveaway on Twitter. The downside was, I had to wait more than a year until it was published. I cancelled my preorder of the book (I usually never win anything) and started to wait impatiently.
Finally, a few weeks ago I got first a mail and then a book package. Just look at the cover, isn’t it a beautiful?
Cover art by Scott Dorman, design by Stephanie Yang
I’m a swimmer, and I’ve dreamed for a long time of swimming with some marine animals, whether they are dolphins or sea turtles. But to be honest, I hadn’t been aware of manatees, until one day I was told they are nicknamed sea cows – and if you know anything about me, you know how much I love cows. This however is the closest I’ve ever come to a sea cow:
Becca, the human main character of Manatee’s best friend, is lucky enough to live in a part of the world where you can see manatees in the wild, namely Florida, and even better, she has wild manatees practically in her own backyard! (Jealous, me?) However, as is so often the case, the local wildlife is endangered by human activity. Becca wants to speak up for her manatee friends, but she barely manages to speak to anyone outside her family, which unfortunately includes the girl who just moved in next door. As it becomes clear the human activity in the river where the manatees feed is increasing, Becca needs to make a move – but when she does, things only get worse.
I loved this story of a girl befriending wild sea cows and finding the courage to take action to protect them.
More information about the author and the book on her website:
Have you ever read a book where the setting was as important as the plot? A book that made you want to jump onto a plane (or train or whatever) and go to the place? The Commissaire Dupin murder mysteries have just that, and—surprise, surprise—the setting is Brittany.
Sein Island
Commissaire Dupin is a remarkable series for several reasons: First it was written by a German author with a setting in France, second it was written in German but is so wildly popular that it’s been translated into a number of languages, third it’s been adapted for tv and is available in both Germany and France (and maybe even other countries by now?), fourth it’s an excellent murder mystery that keeps you guessing until the very end, and finally, the Brittany portrayed in the stories is the real Brittany. The author really knows his stuff.
Brocéliande Forest
Concarneau
A quick introduction to the series: Commissaire Georges Dupin has been transferred from Paris to Brittany as punishment (that alone should tell you enough about how Parisians view Bretons, and the feeling is mutual) for a never specified scandal. Once you get to know him, you can make an educated guess that he cared more for catching a murderer than for political sensibilities.
Saint Malo
In Brittany, the “province”, everyone considers him as an outsider, a “Parisian” in the worst sense of the term. His team of two very different inspectors and his assistant Nolwenn who seems to know everything and everyone in Brittany, are convinced he can become a Breton over time. Together they solve murders all over Brittany and even down to Guérande in the Loire-Atlantique which only historically belongs to Brittany, even though technically they are based in the southern Finistère town of Concarneau. (It’s beautiful, you should go visit.)
Concarneau – Commissaire Dupin’s favorite hangout is the restaurant with the red awnings
Here’s where each of his cases takes Commissaire Dupin:
Death in Pont-Aven (Book 1) – Pont Aven
Murder on Brittany Shores (Book 2) – Glénan Islands
Fleur de Sel Murders (Book 3) – Guérande
The Missing Corpse (Book 4) – Belon River
The Killing Tide (Book 5) – Sein Island
The Granite Coast Murders (Book 6) – PInk Granite Coast
The King Arthur Case (Book 7) – Brocéliande Forest
The Body by the Sea (Book 8) – Concarneau
Death of a Master Chef (Book 9) – Saint Malo
The following books don’t seem to have been translated yet, but here are their locations:
I’m very excited to share a book that means very much to me personally. Let me first explain why: As you might know, I’m passionate about languages and I’m an expat raising my daughter bilingually. But did you know my fascination with bilingualism dates back to middle school? It got another boost when I spent a year as an exchange student in Canada, living with a bilingual host family.
At university, I embarked upon a bilingual course with a binational diploma, and my diploma paper was on bilingualism in the German-French border area, and more specifically in kindergarten classes on both sides of the border. I read a number of books for my research, but the book I would really have needed then, and again when my daughter was born, hadn’t been written yet. Now it has, and I am proud to say, that I played a tiny little part in it.
But enough about me. Adam Beck, the author of this book, is the founder of the blog Bilingual Monkeys and the online forum The Bilingual Zoo for parents raising multilingual kids. An educator for over 30 years, Adam has worked with hundreds of bilingual and multilingual children as a classroom teacher and private tutor. Originally from the United States, he has lived in Hiroshima, Japan since 1996 and is raising two trilingual children in Japanese, English, and Spanish.
His previous publication include the bilingual-parent handbook Maximize Your Child’s Bilingual Ability, the playful “picture book for adults” titled I WANT TO BE BILINGUAL! (illustrated by Pavel Goldaev), 28 Bilingual English-Spanish Fairy Tales & Fables and a humorous novel for children and adults titled How I Lost My Ear (illustrated by Simon Farrow).
Along with his books and his online writing, he provides empowering support to bilingual and multilingual families through personal coaching, online and off, and through speaking appearances at conferences and workshops worldwide. He is on the consultation team at the Harmonious Bilingualism Network (HaBilNet), led by Annick De Houwer.
For Bilingual Success Stories Around the World, Adam interviewed families all over the world raising their children with more than one language. He presents their many different situations and lets them describe their approaches, the obstacles they encountered, and their successes in their own words. Some families have very young children, others live with teenagers or are already in their second generation. Some use the “one parent one language” method, others “minority language at home”, some have only one parent speaking the minority language, others have three languages in their daily lives. (And as you might have guessed, one of those families is mine.)
This is the book I wish I had when my daughter was born!
(Well, this and Maximize Your Child’s Bilingual Ability). I hope it will encourage many other families to embark or continue on the path of bilingualism and multilingualism.
Bilingual Success Stories Around the World: Parents Raising Multilingual Kids Share Their Experiences and Encouragement is a real-life roadmap to greater success and joy for any parent raising bilingual or multilingual children. Written in the same empowering spirit as Adam’s first book Maximize Your Child’s Bilingual Ability, this practical, worldly-wise guide features the success stories of a wide range of families and details the kinds of attitudes and actions that can enable your family to enjoy the same sort of rewarding success. The focus of this book is on the actual practice of raising children to acquire active ability in more than one language, conveyed through the revealing experiences of parents who are now succeeding admirably at their bilingual or multilingual aim. Read this book for ideas and inspiration to help you realize your own family’s joyful success story!
You know I’m a bit of a language nerd, right? I’m trilingual, live in Paris, raise my kid in German, and write in English (all the while learning Italian and listening to podcasts in Plattdüütsch, my granny’s mother tongue.) So show me a book where languages are involved, and I’ll make a grab for it without bothering to find out more.
Laura Rueckert’s YA fantasy novel A DRAGONBIRD IN THE FERN is one of those books, even though her protagonist Jiara is my opposite – where I would have thrown myself into learning a new language in full immersion mode, Jiara has given up on learning languages due to dyslexia and years of scholarly struggles. Still, her motivation is the life-and-death kind, not only for herself but for her loved ones as well. For if she doesn’t find her sister’s murderer in that foreign country where she doesn’t understand anyone, her sister’s ghost may well kill all of her family, starting with Jiara herself. If the killer doesn’t get Jiara first, that is. As if that weren’t enough, Jiara doesn’t just have to travel to the faraway land where she doesn’t understand anyone to look for her sister’s murderer, she has to marry the king of that country. Can you imagine being married to someone you can’t communicate with on top of hunting down a murderer? Add to that awesome world building, and you have A DRAGONBIRD IN THE FERN.
Curious? Here’s all the info you need to get your hands on the book which released on August 3, 2021.
About the author Laura Rueckert is a card-carrying bookworm who manages projects by day. At night, fueled by European chocolate, she transforms into a writer of young adult science fiction and fantasy novels. Laura grew up in Michigan, USA, but a whirlwind romance after college brought her to Europe. Today, she lives in Germany with her husband, two kids, and one fluffy dog.
