Hello

I was born and raised in a small town in the northern region of Brazil in the late 1980s. Despite the fact that there were no libraries or bookstores in my city, my mother did everything she could to instill a love of books into my everyday life. She did her best to provide me with enough literature to keep me entertained in a city where there was not much to do. When we traveled to larger cities, I remember looking for bookshops and stocking up on large quantities of titles that we would soon be reading side by side. Reading at home next to my mother is among my favorite memories. She would read her books, and I would read mine. And when those were finished and I had nothing else to read from my own pile, I'd read hers; and when those were done, well, phone books and religious literature laying around the house would suffice.

 

Another thing my city lacked was people from different ethnic groups. Until I traveled out of the country in my teens, I had no exposure to other cultures or even different faiths. At age 18, I moved to the United States to pursue my education. In terms of world discovery, those were the best years of my life. I had friends from all over the world, and we had an incredibly diverse community that thrived despite —or, dare I say, because of— our differences. My world expanded 1,000-fold, and I fell in love with learning about various cultures and religions. It also opened my eyes to the many parallel worlds in which each ethnicity lived. Fast forward many years, I am now in a mixed-ethnic marriage and the mother of four beautiful multicultural children.

 

Through my writing, I hope to instill in my children and others around the world a strong sense of understanding and pride in their heritage. According to studies, cross-cultural children frequently struggle with identity and a sense of belonging as they grow up. I want to provide children with enjoyable, sweet, and fun literature to show them that their mixed heritage is something to be celebrated. I want them to understand how valuable they are to the world. Furthermore, my book, and hopefully many more to follow, aims to shed light on the subject and raise awareness of how society, perhaps unknowingly, alienates those who are different from them because of where they come from.