Sonia, Author and Kedsunee, illustrator
French Magazine Pas Vu, Pas Lu, Number 3
Sonia Kermen
Profession: toddler teacher and author of bilingual children's books.
Biography:
Breton (France) by birth, Sonia has lived in the United States since 2008. After several years as a blog coordinator, creating slogans, presentation videos, model for various marketing campaigns and a teacher, Sonia Kermen, a writer since the age of nine, now devotes herself to her passion.
She is also the author of the bilingual series “Les Aventures d'Enzo/The Adventures of Enzo” from 2012 with the name of Sonia Colasse.
Bibliography:
Enzo The Little Adventurer / Enzo The Little Adventurer - At the ZOO / At the ZOO - 2020
Written by Sonia Kermen - Illustrated by Kedsunee Volasanh - Translated into English by Bella G.
Les Aventures d'Enzo / Les Aventures d´Enzo is a series of 12 books written in 2012 with the name of Sonia Colasse available on Amazon US and European.
1-The First Day of Enzo under the Eyes of Mr. Taurus /
Enzo’s First Day under the Eyes of Mr. Taurus
2-La Visite des Jumeaux / The Twins come to Visit
3-A Day with Miss Cancer / A Day with Miss Crab
4-A Lion unlike the Others / A Different sort of Lion
5-Enzo in the Clouds / Enzo in the Clouds
6-Enzo does Something Wrong / Enzo does Something Wrong
7-Enzo Adopts a Scorpion / Enzo Adopts a Scorpion
8-Enzo gets Bored / Enzo gets Bored
9-Enzo and his First Christmas / Enzo’s First Christmas
10-Enzo and the Bonsai / Enzo and the Bonsai
11-Enzo in the wilderness / Enzo in the wild
12-Baby Enzo and the baby Lamb / Baby Enzo and the little lamb
ARTICLE - INTERVIEW:
1/ Sonia, we discovered your bilingual book on the LinkedIn Network: "Enzo Le petit Aventurier / Enzo The Little Adventurer". Who is this book for and what is unique about it?
The Story of Enzo, the Little Adventurer at the Zoo, is a book of nine different stories about animals, their lives, values, habits and customs told with simplicity and ease.
Parents will enjoy teaching each animal's values and will be supported by a proverb that ends each story.
This BILINGUAL book is educational and written in FRENCH and translated into ENGLISH.
For toddlers and primary school children.
2/ Is this the first volume in a series?
Maybe, to tell the truth, I hadn't asked myself the question before I even finished writing it. I had already done a series of 12 bilingual books with the adventures of Enzo in 2012. And I must admit, inconclusive. I give myself time to see how this book is perceived before setting off in a direction that would not make sense!
3/ What motivated you, pushed you to start writing and publishing a bilingual book? What were your original intentions?
Know that I have been writing since the age of nine, so the pen has never left me. I put the pen down several times, to do different jobs.
Since then, the pandemic, the fact of staying at home, made me want to resume my first passion, writing.
Writing a bilingual children's book comes from my personal experience with my three children, two of whom were born in France, who suffered tremendously the first year we arrived in the US, learning a new language late. Today, my three children are bilingual and even trilingual for the eldest. My daughter read a book a week, one in English and took note of all the words she did not understand, and the following week in French so as not to forget her mother tongue.
So she inspired me to write bilingual children's books.
I think that the more we motivate the brains of our young children, with the example of a reading in the evening in French and the following evening in English, the easier it is for them to learn different languages. During the first years, the child listens, learns and records. The following years become learning and education. In my opinion, it is important to include play, imagination, fascination and drawings for awakening and understanding a story.
4/ How long did this book take from you, from the first day to its publication date? What were the key stages, the difficulties encountered and the satisfactions experienced?
I wrote the first stories in 2012, after the release of the first series 'The Adventures of Enzo', wishing to continue a new series.
Following a divorce and the loss of my publishing house, I left the first stories on file.
With this year's pandemic, I took the first stories out of a drawer, and I continued to write for pleasure and the desire to share with my son Enzo, my hero, and our adventures at the zoo.
I was very quickly inspired, the souvenir photos with my son were a great help to remind me of his questions, his interest in such and such an animal. I did some research on the nine animals of my choice, answering directly with a story to the questions of the children, and in particular that of Enzo, my son. The difficulty was the layout and creation of the book.
Design is not my first talent, and the Photoshop application may seem simple to use, however, it still takes a minimum of training to know how to use it.
I very quickly decided to publish the nine stories, after my school experience.
I am French, a kindergarten teacher, and my language and my accent have never posed a problem for me with my colleagues or the parents of the children, on the contrary.
Foreign languages and especially European always fascinate parents, moreover French is still considered a romantic language, and the accent is adored. With the agreement of my superiors and the parents of the children, I taught in addition to English, through playing, singing and reading history my language, French. The children were immediately captivated, listened with attention, for sure repeated the songs or the alphabet and I also realized that I mastered my class faster and obtained the calm of my students by speaking French to them. I don't know if it's the result of the language, the accent, or my voice. I saw myself as a superhero by gaining exceptional power! I really don't regret this exchange and this beautiful experience with these little two-year-olds. And I thank my culture and my French language every day.
I am proud of the result of my work, the layout, the size of the texts, the choice of drawings and to have built this book myself.
5/ Did your work in pairs with Kedsunee Volasanh, the illustrator, seem difficult, long, revealing unexpected discoveries or on the contrary an adventure as strong as those experienced by Enzo, your character?
Kedsunee has been a friend even before collaborating on Enzo's stories. We know how to meet the first years of my arrival in the US in a group of English-speaking parents and children. I have always admired his passion for drawing, his talent, and his precise gesture.
Our friendship is also due to our complicity with France, to be the mother of bilingual children and to respect our choice to continue to speak at home with them in our mother tongue.
The idea of introducing her to my project was crushed by friend to friend, her understanding for the idea of drawing for a bilingual book, her patience and her talent as an illustrator.
We had no doubts, apprehension or fear of not succeeding together in this project. We trusted each other by letting our instincts guide us.
Our collaboration was very straightforward, I made a list with each design's ideas and directions, talking each day and let Kedsunee's talent as an illustrator complete the work.
I would say that this experience gave Kedsunee the idea to develop her talent, to evolve and to be independent today with her own desire to create.
Concerning me, I already had a friend, a beautiful bond with Kedsunee and I would say that this friendship only evolved humanely, with respect, listening, progress and that opened a new chapter on a beautiful bond.
6/ Have you had any feedback from your readership and of what nature (enthusiastic, questioning, positive, etc.)?
There are indeed some interesting feedbacks, especially concerning bilingual parents.
The stories are popular, and the colorful designs are loved.
The novelty and the positive are having access to two languages. It is a privilege for some parents. The French mom reads in her mother tongue and American dad his or vice versa.
The negative with American people was generally:
"We don't speak French at all, and we don't know how to pronounce words."
Now is available on YouTube and every Sunday on my social media, a video telling each chapter of the stories read in French by myself and Enzo my son the hero, read the English version. Thus, there are no more excuses for not reading either in English or in French!
7/ Is the World of Enzo different from the World we all live in?
The only difference between our real world and those of stories is the imagination.
For example, I have yet to see or hear of a child tobogganing on the back of a giraffe. However, I think the imagination is quite closed to dreams. As a child, we all dreamed one day of sharing a special moment with an animal from the zoo or the savannah. In my opinion, it is necessary to escape from the real to the imagination, especially in this period of the pandemic and Covid 19.
It is also easier to attract the attention of a child, with the imagination, the dream, and the game. However, each story has an element of reality and education with the life of animals, their values, their habits, their customs told with simplicity and ease, either by the animals themselves (Or we find this imagination.) or read on the signs by Enzo, the hero.
8/ What do you think you will bring with Enzo to young readers with the nine stories that make up this book?
My Nine Story Children's Book is a great way to access a language with children's imaginations, education and the animal world.
Young readers will recognize themselves in Enzo. They will enjoy his adventures because they reflect their feelings and their way of being.
Children will follow a whimsical boy in his discovery at the zoo and imaginative named Enzo. This little Irish prince, dressed in green pajamas, wears a symbol of luck with the clover, has four leaves, and discovers the life of animals under the watchful eye of his lucky star. The simple pictures and vivid colors of Enzo's world will naturally attract children and quickly capture their attention. They will help children to focus on the story and understand it more easily. Each biography ends with a sentence that sums up the life of the animal so as not to forget certain human values.
His stories were inspired by the unique relationship I share with my 11-year-old son.
They are imaginative, educational, poetic, bilingual of two languages French and English, and each story ends with a positive proverb.
9/ In your capacity as an expatriate, how do you feel, how do you experience bilingualism in a personal capacity and in the family register?
Unfortunately, bilingualism is still not a trend. Often we hear that foreigners speak multiple languages, which is wrong! I reassure the French, and you are not the only ones who speak your mother tongue.
Americans, for example, mostly speak only their language. Otherwise, their second language is Spanish, because South America is our neighbor and there is a large population of Mexican people. They therefore have a motivation to become bilingual. They are not interested in learning different languages, just by having to choose their studies.
We have to face a lot of reluctance, of reserved testimony, in the speech, the behavior of others when we are expatriated, of questioning, and sometimes find ourselves confronted with our accent not always understood especially in the administrative sector.
Overall, it's positive, with an admiration for the French language. I advise parents to educate their child in different languages. We are faced with traveling for work, and relocating to a foreign country, and we will still have to leave our countries of origin in the years to come. Whether it is to work, by crush and experience or call it love.
It is therefore better to prepare your children before than after, knowing that with age it is more difficult to acquire a new language.
10/ Have you already started a sequel to the adventures of Enzo? If so, do you have any idea when it will be released?
No, I am starting from the principle of letting time take its course, and going slowly, but surely. I would like to acquire notoriety with this book and impose bilingualism before talking about a continuation of bilingual children's books.
I have some new ideas though, but I'm not sure if this will be a sequel to 'Enzo Le Petit Aventurier', or another project.
Blog, website, other links:
https://authorandmodel.wixsite.com/soniakermen/books-projects
https://www.instagram.com/authorandmodel/
https://www.facebook.com/AuthorandModelSonia/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIZeKjWgQcht0b1SzWuKF1Q/
