London author partners with local bookshop to launch ‘ESEA Book Fairies’ initiative to challenge and inspire UK children for East and Southeast Asian Heritage Month
Angelina Wong-Jardin, Fish Tales & Rhymes
An author from London has partnered with Bamboo Bilingual (Former De Ziremi Bookshop) to launch an ‘ESEA book fairy’ initiative for East and Southeast Asian (ESEA) Heritage Month this September - challenging children across the UK to a book scavenger hunt to boost awareness for East and Southeast Asian representation in children’s literature. This September marks the third annual East and South East Asian (ESEA) Heritage Month - established in September 2021 to honour and celebrate the culture, diversity, history and contributions of East and South East Asian communities across the UK.
This year, Angelina Wong-Jardin - the founder, author and creator of bilingual musical board books Fish Tales & Rhymes - is set to partner with independent Chinese bookshop Bamboo Bilingual (Former De Ziremi) to create the ‘ESEA Book Fairies Initiative’ - which will nominate ESEA Book Fairies to hide over 100 children’s ESEA books across London for young readers to discover as part of an endeavour to advocate for more Asian representation in children’s literature.
Angelina says: "Members of the East and Southeast Asian community want their children to be able to read books with characters that they can resonate with - that look like them, have similar backgrounds to them, that they can connect to. By recognising themselves through the culture that the characters may be associated with in the books, children can grow up feeling a sense of pride in their cultural heritage. In the long-term I’d love to see more communities join hands to make ESEA kids’ literature more widely available across the country”.
Delicia Ong, DeZeremi Bilingual Bookshop
ESEA Book Fairies will be hiding over 100 books - donated by Angelina herself, inclusive publisher
Knights Of, DeZiremi, Branching Out Books and various authors - in public spaces from
parks, to playgrounds, to retail parks across London for children to find on their hunt. Each book has
been written by authors from Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese and Vietnamese heritage and
will be wrapped with a ribbon and contain an official ‘Book Fairies’ sticker. Some books will also come with handmade bookmarks.
Over the course of September, clues of where books are hidden will be left periodically on the Fish Tales & Rhymes and De Ziremi Instagram pages for families to find. Some of the locations where ESEA Book Fairies will be hiding books include Kings Cross’ British Library, Chinatown London,
Hammersmith, Holland Park, Putney, Kingston, New Malden, and Wimbledon. Among the ESEA Book Fairies hiding literature over September are ITV’s Frankie Vu and social media influencers Tiffany Leong and Abby Teh.
This new initiative, inspired by I Believe In Book Fairies, has also received the backing of the House of Lord's Baron Sonny Leong, CBE - who is also the Chair for Labour for the ESEA community and an advocate for increasing minority representation. His political passion is driven by ensuring that no child is left behind in education or life opportunities.
Delicia Ong, founder of Bamboo Bilingual bookshop, has said: "Children today need to know that there are others like them, sharing their language, experiencing similar things. It may seem as though we only provide children and families with the books for their bilingual journey - but it's more than that. What we do is prepare them for a future that celebrates diversity, so that they always feel supported and seen. Everything we do at De Ziremi (Bamboo Bilingual) is driven by this mission. Therefore, there can be no greater reason for us to support the ESEA Book Fairies”.
Fish Tales & Rhymes’ and Bamboo Bilingual’s ESEA Book Fairies project is set to launch on Friday,
1st September. More information is available on the Fish Tales website.