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By Jon Dunbar
Any parent of young children dreads running out of bedtime stories. And it's extra challenging with bilingual children, finding books that can stimulate their minds in both languages.
When Hallie Bradley's daughter Ava was three years old, she started asking for bedtime stories to be read in both English and Korean.
"We'd either have to have two libraries of books with the same titles or more books with bilingual children in mind," Bradley, a foreign resident here, told The Korea Times. "There aren't a lot though. There are a lot of English/Korean learning books but that wasn't exactly what I wanted. I wanted a story book, something that wasn't so much about learning new vocabulary, but more about a calming meditative experience."
So she and her family fixed that problem by creating their own bedtime story, "The Sun & The Moon Story."
"This story started off one night as we laid in bed looking out the window," Bradley, also a Korea Times contributor, said. "I think all kids don't want to go to sleep at one point or another. They want to see what happens after they go to sleep. I was relaying the story to my daughter so she could understand that we move and see and play when the sun is up and then let the moon watch over us at night as we sleep. It started out simply and then we talked about how the colors of the sun change throughout the day and eventually she fell asleep. The Sun & The Moon Story very much became a calming meditation for both of us to unwind and just be in the moment thinking about what we accomplished in the day, what we saw and who we met."
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| "The Sun & The Moon Story" / Courtesy of Hallie Bradley |
As the story solidified, she worked with Yoon Jeemin, an educator of young children, on a Korean translation, and Raquel P. Cruz contributed illustrations. Bradley met the expat artist when she organized a market through her site The Soul of Seoul. She especially praised Cruz's vivid use of colors for bringing the story to life.
"It's colorful and she uses both Western and Korean influences in her illustrations which is fantastic for our American and Korean daughter as it respects both of her cultures and brings them together so beautifully," Bradley said. "As we read, the paint stroke swishes lead into watercolor illustrations and Ava points out the colors and the time of day that the image elicits."
Contrasting with the colorful sunlight, the book also depicts objects familiar in daily life here, including a distinctly Korean window, washroom and even landscapes.
"When children can recognize window frames from their own home in a book or the mountains they see outside of the windows, I think it adds a layer of calming understanding," she said. "With this book, children will immediately connect with something whether it's the Korean-style window frames or the bugs in the grass and their toes traipsing through the green field. I think that provides the perfect sense of calm and cozy that a child drifting off to sleep needs."
The final product is intended for children aged 3 to 5, although Bradley says it has new uses now that her daughter is learning to read.
"It's not necessarily meant to be a language learning book," she said, "but since it is a bilingual book, it's a great opportunity for language learners, multicultural families and those interested in learning either English or Korean to read and understand."
The story has been a big help for Bradley's family when bedtime nears. Now, neither parent has to worry about translating on the fly.
"For our bedtime routine, both my husband and I are present so usually I read the book in English and then my husband reads it again in Korean. When I read the story, I read it with a rhythmic yoga-like manner where I breathe in and breathe out at regular intervals. This is something I started to do with a lot of our story telling as it helped with the point of the bedtime routine which is going to sleep," she said.
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| Author Hallie Bradley, right, and her family read the bedtime storybook, "The Sun & The Moon Story" together. / Courtesy of Hallie Bradley |
"There are so many nuances to the way we tell stories in different cultures and what we utilize. Having a bilingual book has been a great opportunity for us as a family to sit down and read together. I didn't grow up in a bilingual household myself, but raising a bilingual daughter has been so eye-opening. We've taught her to be proud of both of her cultures, both of her languages and both of her countries ― but to do that, it's also important to provide her with real-life examples where these two worlds are melded together and can work together seamlessly, just as she does every day."
The book is available for print on demand through Amazon, as well as domestically through her site thesoulofseoul.net. But Bradley admits she made the book for purposes other than sales and fame.
"I've gotten a lot of interest since I've shared the book especially from other multicultural families here in Korea so I have sold it, but the original intent was more or less to get it printed for our own family," she said. "It's paperback and at some point I hope to get a hardcover copy figured out, but right now this is amazing to have it printed and have a real book in front of us, and to have so much support from our local community of expats and families."
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July 20, 2020 at 10:21PM
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Expat releases bilingual bedtime story - Korea Times
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