Q&A with Motomitsu Maehara, Author/Artist of the Words of the World Multilingual Board Book Series
Guest post by Blue Dot Kids Press, 2024 Bronze Sponsor
“Nowadays many families live under multicultural situations like our family. I believe that we can accept and share ‘diversity’ through words, animals, nature, cultures, family and friends. Animals and nature are very interesting for kids in that they have very unique characters, shapes, colors. I think we can find such unique diversity only on our planet.” —Motomitsu Maehara
-Why did you create these children’s books?
I live in multi cultures: I’m a Japanese living in France, with a Polish wife, and a son who has French nationality and speaks Japanese, French, English, Polish. So mixed languages are always spoken at our home. I think there are many families in the world on this kind of multicultural situation nowadays. So I decided to make this book for the multicultural families and, children who have friends from other cultures to learn various languages.
-Why did you decide to use collage as your art medium?
I’m a poet and musician, DJ as well. Collage is a technique similar to being a DJ and musician. DJs mix different sounds to make a story. And as poet and artist, I cut and paste words and color of papers of magazine to make pictures.
-What do you hope children will learn/gain from these books/this series?
To know the diversity. There are many cultures and languages, colors, shapes, creatures, words on this planet. And the diversity can make a beautiful harmony. I hope children will learn to love differences, to love animals and plants, to respect and love each culture and each other.
About the WORDS OF THE WORLD Multilingual Board Book Series:
Explore words of the world and learn the names of a variety of animals or plants in the six most widely spoken languages.
Curious minds will love the playful, brightly colored collages and multilingual exploration of animals from around the world and their names.
These beautiful board books pair gorgeous collages of eighteen types of animals or plants with their names across the six most popular languages worldwide: English, Chinese (Mandarin), Hindi, Spanish, French, and Arabic, as well as the language of universal friendship, Esperanto.
The Words of the World board book series encourages multilingual exploration and curiosity about our world within young readers.
Featured in Fuse #8 Production’s / School Library Journal’s Board Books
Featured in Tinybeans Best Children’s Books
“Lovely and informative.” —Elizabeth Bird, Fuse #8 Production
“Attractive paper collages… cut and layered to create arresting images. Lovely.” —Kirkus Reviews
