This past week, Tommi Grover, from Multilingual Matters was in town for the TESOL conference. It was my honor and delight to have the opportunity to meet him after having sent emails back and forth with him and his family for so many years.Years ago, when I first came up with the idea of the Bilingual/Bicultural Family Network, I did a desperate search for resources. It is no accident that I ended up at the Multilingual Matters website! They specialize in books on bilingualism and multilingualism and are where you will find fabulous books for parents from Colin Baker, Suzanne Barron-Hauwaert and many more!
But for me, the books are only a part of the reason I delight in Multilingual Matters... it is because this publishing house is the "real deal." They were founded and are run by the Grover family and there is simply no kinder family out there than this one! Each member of the family I have had the privilege of being in contact with has been helpful, kind, generous and all-around wonderful. They have offered me advice and have kept me motivated in my efforts to continue spreading support for families raising multilingual and multicultural children.
Basically, there are not enough words of praise in the English language to express how I feel about everyone at Multilingual Matters. It was such a great honor to meet Tommi and I hope we will have opportunities in the future to meet and chat again. I also hope to have the chance to meet the rest of his family sometime in the future.
If you happen to be at a conference and you see the Multilingual Matters booth, make sure to stop by and say hello to Tommi or whomever may be at the booth! They will be delighted!
5 comments:
That's really nice! I hope we get to meet someday as well :)
I'm really glad for you that you guys were able to meet! That's truly awesome! Great photo! :)
Thanks you two! Can you tell how excited and nervous I was to meet him? It was such a fabulous moment in my life, contact with him and his family represents so many years of my life. That first tentative email I sent out to MM and his joyful, kind, supportive reply. It gave me more encouragement than I can say.
When I said goodbye to Tommi after our visit, I was totally sad. I walked through downtown Seattle and took photos and watched people as they moved through the city. It reminded me of how much I live my life through words... emails, articles, blogs, essays. I'm still not sure how I feel about that!
Although I’m sure I should, I didn’t know about Multilingual Matters before reading this post. I am very familiar with (and love) Colin Baker’s work, though. I need to find some resources on bilingualism for parents that are written in Spanish. If you happen to know of any, I’d be grateful for the info. How great that you got to meet someone with whom you’ve had such admiration for! I was actually in Seattle for the TESOL convention too, but it was a whirlwind three days. I didn’t get to do half of the things I wanted to--like meeting up with fellow bloggers.
Beloved - thanks for stopping by! I just read your entry about your visit to Seattle. Hee hee, yes, you did sum it up very well! :-)
As for books in Spanish, let me see what I can find. Right now what I can think of is Colin Baker's "The Parents' and Teachers' Guide" in Spanish. Do you already know about that? Check out the Multilingual Matters site and you will definitely find it. Anyone else know of resources for bilingual families in Spanish?
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