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A book born out of love: Boise mom writes trilingual children's book

Nara Lee's book is now published. She wrote it for her son, who speaks English, Korean and Mandarin.

BOISE, Idaho — Most of us have probably seen bilingual books in the store or library, a book that's in two languages. A Boise woman wrote a trilingual children's book after she saw a need for it for her son. 

Nara Lee told KTVB, she hopes her book will help shine a light on cultural diversity. It’s a book that was born out of love. When Lee had her son Jordan 19 months ago, she realized there wasn't a book that incorporated her heritage, along with her partner's. 

“I wanted to teach him everything that he deserves to know and really touch base on where his culture is, he is Korean, American and Taiwanese and how do you kind of engage your kids and learn all of that and appreciate every single culture, it's so hard, I felt really lost,” Lee said.

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So, she decided to write her own book.

“I would just stay up all night, just drawing,” Lee said. “He's a trilingual baby, he speaks English, Korean, as well as Mandarin. When I was looking for books, that were just for bilingual kids, there was just not a lot available.”

That's how her book, ‘Benny & Friends Say... Manners Matter!’ came to be. “It's simple, like greetings. You know, the first things that you kind of teach your kid is hello, goodbye, thank you. And it's really hard to teach that all three languages just repeating it constantly, but to make it really fun,” Lee said. “I think it's been helpful…  it's really cute to kind of see him interact with the book and really applying it to real-life situations.” 

She adds that she never planned on being an author. She went to art school and then ended up a video producer, but this book has put her back in touch with her roots in more ways than one.

“It's kind of a reflection of who I was before I became a mom,” Lee said. 

As she turns the page on this project, she now plans to write another book. 

“This next book means lunchbox in Korean,” Lee said. “It's a story where Jordan when he's of age, going to school, talking about how he doesn't want to take this food that's Korean, because other kids might say something and that's something that I personally went through growing up.”

Lee’s love for her son is now adding another chapter to their story.

“It's just really just amazing,” Lee said. 

You can find Lee’s book on Amazon, at Barnes and Noble Book Store and Good Reads.com

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