The journey began with my daughter, Eva, born in Poland.
She juggles four languages daily. She speaks English at preschool, Polish in the playground, Belarusian and Russian at home and with her family and friends.
Intro in English
Look through the book
Intro in Polish
Intro in Belarusian
Intro in Russian
In search of an ABC book for Eva, I found many options, but none met my "multilingual criteria". I was looking for a multilingual (as multilingual person) and aesthetically superior (as a book designer) alphabet book.
Working initially with five languages I sought words starting with the same letter across different languages. ChatGPT was significantly accelerating the process :).
The final book includes 24 languages:
Arabic, Belarusian, Bengali, Bulgarian, Chinise (Simplified), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, French, Georgian, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Kazakh, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Turkish, Ukrainian.
A team of 48 native speakers joined our Workspace to proofread the content.
Design
Testing PDF on iPAD
White space — a rarity in children's book design. As a father, I appreciate the importance of such aesthetics. My goal was to create a book that was clean.
I reached out to linguists and educators experienced in teaching bilingual and multilingual children. Their feedback helped me to shape the book's core message:
There are many languages. Some are very similar. Some are very different.
This theme in multilingual environments teaching children about the fun of linguistic similarities and differences.
Multilingual children often develop reading and writing skills at a different pace. My daughter Eva and her friends were involved in the illustration process. This collaboration evolved from simple drawings to more complex designs, like cats in astronaut suits. We utilized AI tools.
For example, for the letter 'Z,' we imagined a teenage cat visiting a Zoo, observing Zebras, and taking selfies. ChatGPT helped us to refine these concepts as prompts. Midjourney web app and Magnific AI web app became our tools in achieving high-resolution illustrations.
Originally created for Eva, two test copies were printed, later this book has become a cherished possession in our family. It stands as a testament to our humanity and the diverse ways we communicate and express ideas.
The book also contains a "Workbook" part where you can practise writing in different languages, scan QR-codes to find out how to generate these cats by yourself.
Workbook spread in the end of the book
Kickstarter Campaign
To bring this project to life, I aim to sell 300 copies at 19 euros each.
This will cover the costs of printing and distribution. Purchase a copy for yourself or as a gift, and help bring this unique multilingual ABC book to other families.
If I reach my goal of 300 sold copies, the book will be printed and shipped. If not, thanks to Kickstarter's policies, all funds will be returned.
