ESEA Heritage Month 2024
We Believe in ESEA Book Fairies!
Celebrating East and Southeast Asian Heritage Month 2024!
September marks the fourth annual celebration of the UK’s East and Southeast Asian (ESEA) Heritage Month and we are thrilled to be running ESEA Book Fairies 2024 for the second consecutive year!
Joining hands with even more partners this year, we are honoured to have their support to advocate for more positive ESEA representation in children’s literature and to also deliver a strong message of standing in solidarity for a stronger community.
This year’s ESEA Book Fairies project will be even more exciting, as over 250 books will be hidden across the UK this month — almost two times more than the previous year when the project was launched.
Will you spot any of our book fairies?
What is
#ESEABookFairies?
We're really excited to bring the community together with the help of our ESEA Book Fairies!
ESEA Book Fairies are individuals who are passionate about celebrating their cultural heritage and identity while raising awareness of the positive impact they are having on British culture.
By becoming an ESEA Book Fairy, they share a love for cultural heritage through promoting the value of positive representation in children's literature.
From bilingual books in Mandarin and Cantonese, picture books that celebrate folktales from Taiwan; to Young Adult fiction where the protagonists are of a Malaysian or an East or Southeast Asian heritage, all books will be left as a hidden surprise for young readers across the community to find.
Every book is an appreciation of the work created by talented individuals from ESEA communities working towards a common goal of being heard and being seen.
How it all began
Inspired by the worldwide movement of Book Fairies, a group of individuals who hide books across the community for people to find in public spaces, we wanted to do the same with the added purpose of helping to advocate for more positive ESEA representation in children’s literature.
The idea to create something that resonated with the ESEA community began with Angelina Wong-Jardin (Fish Tales & Rhymes) and Delicia Ong (Bamboo Bilingual), two passionate, UK-based startup founders in the world of book selling and publishing. We are dedicated to providing books and educational games for families who want to raise bilingual children and connect them with their cultural heritage.
We also wanted to highlight the many beautifully written stories by individuals with ESEA heritage that often go underrepresented in the mainstream. Our mission is to bring these stories to the forefront and share them with our communities.
Meet the ESEA Book Fairies
We're thrilled to be teaming up with a wonderful lineup of ESEA Book Fairies where they'll be hiding over 250 books across the UK.
Will you find any books hidden by the book fairies this year?
This year, we are thrilled to have some of Britain's active and influential East and Southeast Asian ambassadors involved in the Book Fairies project. Their partnership spotlights the importance of what our mission means to them but also, how they believe it can positively impact the next generation. We are honoured to welcome our book fairies who are joining us to celebrate cultural diversity through bilingual learning and storytelling.
TV Host
Cultural Ambassador
Cultural Advocate
2 Michelin Star Chef, A.Wong,
Anthropologist
Co-Founder of Besea.n
Korean Cultural Ambassador
Co-Founder, Hanbok Wave UK
More ESEA
Book Fairies
Help drive change to see more more ESEA representation in children's literature.
If you happen to be lucky to have found a book, we would love your help to tell the world about your discovery created by the work of talented ESEA authors. Simply take a picture of the free book that you have found.
Post on social media for your friends and family to see what the ESEA Book Fairy has gifted you, adding #ESEAbookfairies so we can let the community know too!
A special thanks to book donors
A special thanks to our industry partners who generously donated books towards this year's ESEA Book Fairies project.
Collaborating with community partners for greater impact
The Organisers
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ESEA Book Fairies 2024 is brought to you by
