Although I have been in the multicultural world since my children were born, over two decades ago, it is not often that I meet a Latina mom entrepreneur that was raised with several cultures and is now raising multilingual and multicultural children in Hong Kong!
Gaby Simmons was born and raised in Peru. She’s of German descent and she was raised with two cultures and languages, Spanish and German. Years later when she ended up living in Germany and became a mom, she couldn’t find bedtime stories in Spanish for her kids. She would translate from German to Spanish. Her Belgian friend, Kat Van den Broeke, created TimTimTom’s first story over twenty years ago, the Underwater Adventure while taking an introductory illustration course and simply put the story aside. When the friends reunited in Hong Kong the idea of publishing stories with a choice of two languages flourished. But this time with a twist, personalizing the stories to entice children to read by seeing themselves in the characters and the stories they were reading. It is also a wonderful language learning tool that helps with vocabulary, colors, shapes, animals, and sentence structures.
TimTimTom Personalized Books for Children was created to help parents raising multilingual children. Through their website, the online service offers customized stories in a combination of 9 different languages and parents can choose between three different story themes:
- You and the Dolphin – A personalized Underwater Adventure
- You Save the Match – A personalized Soccer Story
- You Dance Swan Lake – A personalized Ballet Story
I invite you to watch our IGTV!
Now Gaby is raising multilingual and multicultural children who can speak English, German, Spanish, and some Mandarin.
3 tips on raising bilingual that helped Gaby’s of Tim Tim Tom Books:
- Books are essential!
- Schools – create community and support
- Supportive partner – like Maritere always says the decision to raise bilingual, multilingual is a joint decision with your spouse, partner.
- Be flexible – adjust language learning to culture.
For more about TimTimTom Books on Instagram @TimTimTomBooks
Thank you, Gaby!
