Bitty Bao's Bilingual Children's Books Bridge Cultural Gaps

In Los Angeles, moms have often led the charge to bring new perspectives to children’s books that better reflect today’s multicultural kids.

Lulu Cheng and Lacey Benard are two of those moms. They cofounded bilingual children’s book publisher Bitty Bao in 2020 and have now published more than a dozen board books. Bitty Bao will release a new picture book this summer.

The stories are written in English, simplified and traditional Chinese. Co-founder Lacey Benard creates the papercut of dim sum, boba, dragon boats and hot pot ingredients and more to bring the stories to life.

Cheng will give a bilingual reading right here at LAist on June 1 as part of Super-Fun Saturday. There will also be storytimes in Spanish, crafts, and coffee for the grown-ups.

Ahead of the event, we spoke to Cheng about her work and about raising kids in a trilingual household — quadrilingual if, like us, you consider food a universal language.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Mariana/LAist: Tell us the origin story of Bitty Bao. I hear there was a text message at the very foundation of the company's founding.

Lulu Cheng/Bitty Bao: So Lacey and I actually met, quite a while ago, our first year of teaching. She has a knack for paper cuttings. She always made beautiful cards. I still have all the cards she's ever made me. As we grew and as I got married and then she got married, we separated to different places. She reached out to me when she became a mom. Her child was not sleeping through the night. And so we reconnected one night. I bounced the idea of, ‘Hey, want to make a book?’

What gap were you trying to fill in the children's book world with Bitty Bao? 

I think I'm considered a first generation Asian American. I grew up mostly in Taiwan. And when I came over and got married, I realized everyone around me were just speaking English. Like, that was the predominant language. My husband and his family spoke mainly Cantonese and English.

My parents are in Taiwan. They have limited English ability. They can completely understand, but for a deeper relationship with anybody, I believe that it's best to speak in their native tongue. When I had kids, I just thought it was really important that even though the grandparents are in Taiwan, I really need to keep up this Mandarin learning in order to develop a relationship, keep the relationship.

That's really why I felt the importance of keeping our language alive in our home. A lot of the things that I do see, say, eat are very cultural. And I wanted my children to feel that they're a part of it. Taiwanese, part Cantonese, and part American. We can be all of it and still be who we are.

And it's one thing to have this idea of like, ‘OK, I can speak this language. It's important for me to pass this language on to my children.’ But then you have your children right in front of you, and they are living in a community where English is often the primary language. So what's the reality of trying to infuse a second language in your home? 

It's always an uphill battle. As much as we want them to speak it, we also need to make it fun so that it's not a chore for them. For example, I would try to find art classes in Chinese, or I would try to find piano or tennis, sports, anything. If we made it fun for them, then maybe they can associate it to a daily, normal thing.

A few pages from the Bitty Bao book Boba Emotions.

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Mariana Dale

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LAist

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What do you hope families take away from engaging with Bitty Bao?

I think it's to make a connection that food is universal, right? And language is also universal. That really brings us back to making connections with each other.

It's a global relationship to have when we can understand each other more. We may have mooncakes, but they look like cakes, you know, it's just — Asian cake versus non-Asian cake, right?

Iit also helps create the connection from a book to actual reality and to be able to use these words and learn the words, say the words.

And when you look back over this journey of starting this company, what's brought you the most joy and fulfillment?

We have a very strong community where people share their stories about our books and how they've used it in their homes. One of the stories was really touching there was a grandma, I think she has dementia, and it was really hard for her to have a relationship with her grandchildren because she was losing some of her language abilities.

Bitty Bao also has a line of wooden toys that include mooncakes, hot pot and dim sum.

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Courtesy Lulu Cheng

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Bitty Bao

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But when she held her books, she was able to read the Cantonese version of it and was able to speak to her grandchildren by reading the books. And that was a very touching moment for the family that grandma actually spoke and came out of her shell basically and had a really touching moment with their grandchildren.

A lot of students, even college students, when they see our toys, they're like, ‘I wish I had these. Where were these when I was little.’

Hopefully kids these days, families, we can share our toys with more people so that they know that they're part of this world.