Bilingual Children's Books - Over 40 Languages Resources

The Language Lizard Team

Anneke Vanmarcke Forzani, President & Founder

How do you inspire children to learn about other languages and cultures and to respect diversity early in their lives? How do you help children maintain their home languages and become bilingual? And how do you HAVE FUN doing it?

These are the questions that drove Anneke Forzani to establish Language Lizard, LLC.

Anneke has been a language enthusiast since birth. And it had nothing to do with the research documenting the many cognitive, academic and social benefits of early language learning. Rather, It was the result of chatting with her Belgian grandma while feeding the chickens; munching on sushi and edamame with her Japanese colleagues; and searching out the best chocolate croissants in Paris with her French amis.

When Anneke became a mother, she wanted her sons to experience the same joys and benefits of early language learning. She also felt it was her responsibility to teach them to respect, play and work with people of all cultures and communities.

…And the real experiment began!…And they had fun in the process!

How? In part, by reading entertaining stories in other languages that the kids wanted to hear over and over. By listening to great multilingual music. And by sharing (age-appropriate) books which include illustrations of various ethnicities and characters dealing with issues of diversity.

After researching available materials, Anneke decided to make the most creative, effective and fun language products readily available to other parents and teachers. Products that expose children not only to other languages, but also to other cultures and traditions. Products that can benefit bilingual families, world language teachers, and educators who work with English Language Learners.

… And so, in 2005, Anneke created Language Lizard.

Some more details about Anneke’s life prior to establishing Language Lizard…

A first generation American with Belgian parents, Anneke worked in Japan and the US in consulting, ethnic marketing and international business development positions. She has an undergraduate degree from Princeton University 's Woodrow Wilson School of Public & International Affairs and an MBA-MA in International Business from the Wharton School and the Joseph H. Lauder Institute of International Studies at the University of Pennsylvania .

Anneke has studied children's writing and graphic arts and has experience teaching English to non-native speakers. She is a member of the National Network for Early Language Learning and the New Jersey Bilingual Educators / Teachers of English as a Second Language Association. She has written articles related to early language and culture learning and is a frequent contributor to Multilingual Living Magazine.

INTERVIEW WITH LANGUAGE LIZARD PRESIDENT & FOUNDER ANNEKE FORZANI Interview on Public Radio International's "The World in Words" podcast (co-produced by BBC, PRI and WGBH) can be heard at http://www.theworld.org/pod/language/WIWpodcast22.mp3. (Note: The interview starts about 5 minutes into the podcast after the Hispanic Heritage Month/Football story)

Katelyn LoBue - Customer Relations Manager
After eight years of customer service and finance experience, Kate now supportsLanguage Lizard while in route to obtaining a teaching degree. She is studying at Monmouth University on a full academic scholarship, having achieved Dean's List her first two years. In addition, Kate is pursuing fluency in the Italian language. A life-long resident of North Jersey , she currently resides in Ocean Grove.

Aimee Marcus, Customer Relations Manager
Aimee has 10 years of customer service and finance experience in the financial services industry. She managed the client service department for a world wide company, building relationships with clients both in America and overseas. During college, she studied Accounting and Business Services. A book lover, Aimee enjoys reading books at bedtime to her two children and volunteers in the library at her children's school.

Michelle Roberts, Customer Relations Manager
Michelle has 20 years customer service and marketing experience in the recruiting industry. Since childhood, Michelle has been an avid reader, traveling the world through books, an interest she has passed on to her children. Believing it is important to give back to the community, Michelle spends much of her time volunteering, with her main focus in education. Most recently she was a board member of the PTO at her daughter's school. She is currently learning Russian with her son.

Terri Sherman, Customer Relations Manager
Terri Sherman has 15 years of marketing, operations and financial experience working for a large telecommunications company. While there she managed the company’s international relationships with customers in Europe , Africa and Asia . She joined Language Lizard shortly after the birth of her first child, now 4. She now has a second child, age 2. She enjoys seeing their enthusiasm when exposing them to Spanish, a language she studied in school and learned while traveling to Spain.

Corey Heller, Educational Programs Consultant

Corey Heller has been involved and interested in languages her entire life. She learned French in school and while studying Ancient History in college, she learned Greek, Latin, German and Italian. She lived in Germany for two years with her German husband and then spent 14 years in the U.S. working in the languages department for a software company. Her most exciting language challenges began when she and her husband decided to raise their three children in English and German (plus some Spanish). Finding that there was no central place to support families raising bilingual children, she founded the award-winning website, Multilingual Living, and developed Multilingual Living Magazine, a digital publications for families and educators. Over the years she has had the privilege of working with renowned experts in the fields of language development and multilingualism from around the world.

Maureen Barlow Pugh, Newsletter Editor
Maureen attributes her facility and love of languages to her German mother, and to her exposure to French as a baby while living in Belgium. Maureen took weekly German classes as a child and through most of high school, and then switched to French in her senior year and in college. She spent a semester in Paris during her junior year at Boston University. After graduating cum laude with a major in Political Science and a minor in French, Maureen worked as a sales representative for an educational sales company and then as an editor for a medical publisher. Maureen is currently at home with her two children. To maintain her language skills, she regularly attends continuing education courses in French and has taken classes in German and Spanish.

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