Bill Belew has raised 2 bi-cultural kids, now 34 and 30. And he and his wife are now parenting a 3rd, Mia, who is 8.

Reading is an adventure

Wanting Mia to learn to love to read (she’s still in kindergarten) I decided to write a story for her to read while her mother and I were on a trip to Europe. It sounds very old-fashioned but it’s not really.

Her mother and I were invited to be guests on a cruise ship sailing from Miami to Nice. I was to be a guest speaker – talking Social Media – what I do in my ‘other’ life.

I asked Mia if there were a story about her what would she like it to be called. She said she wanted it named:

Mia’s Fantasy

The little girl had long dark hair. Her eyes were brown. And she had puffy cheeks. She loved to read. She loved when her daddy read books to her, too.

One day she was reading a book about far off places and daring sword fights. The little girl stopped to look at a picture in the book. All children like to see pictures from time to time in their books. But not too many, of course. It’s often more fun to imagine. As the little girl looked very carefully at the page, to her surprise one of the people on the page in the book looked back at her! And waved her hand!

Without thinking, the little dark-haired girl reading the book waved back at the little girl in the book. Can you imagine the scene? A little girl being so interested in her book that she felt like she was in the book. They both giggled and smiled at each other. And reached out to hold each other’s hand.

The little girl in the book’s name was Mia. She was on an adventure.

Talk to Bill and others about their experiences raising bi-cultural Japanese-American kids.