If the Loch Ness Monster could talk, what language would he speak?
Local author and publisher Pauline Mackay has more than a few guesses – Scots, Gaelic, Chinese, Polish – and she tries them all out in her Wee MacNessie stories.
Miss Mackay’s children’s books follow the adventures of a care-free imagining of Nessie who, more than anything, loves spending time with his friends.
But there’s a twist: all of her books are bilingual. Each page has English text alongside a translation in one of a dozen languages. Her Inverness bookshop, Ablekids Press, is brimming with shelves of children’s stories in languages from all across the globe.
It’s all in a bid to encourage kids to see the world from new perspectives, and to give parents a chance to connect with children on their language-learning adventures.
‘It’s wonderful to look outside of your own world’
Miss Mackay’s foray into bilingual books started with a personal love of languages. She studied French at university in Glasgow and spent time in Poland teaching English as a foreign language.
Now, she wants to share that love of language with families, and she has found that story is the perfect medium for beginners.
“I really appreciate how important it is to speak another language.
“I believe children can do anything.”
-Author Pauline Mackay
“It’s wonderful to be able to look outside of your own world. You really do look at things differently when you learn a different language.”
In her experience as a language teacher and student, Miss Mackay found story to be an effective medium for learning a language.
“With a very young child, you’re looking at the ways of learning that you would use with a native speaker. So, a mother singing songs to her child, lullabies, or reading stories. You hear all of the time how important it is to read stories to young children, so that they learn vocabulary and how things work.”
Don’t forget about the parents
But Miss Mackay also realizes that, since her stories are for young children, it is adults who will be doing most of the reading at story time.
She writes her books to be accessible for parents, who may not know the language themselves but want to feel a part of their child’s experience.
Some publications of her Wee MacNessie stories include phonetics for the various languages, so that readers know how to pronounce unfamiliar words.
“When I was first starting out, what I heard from parents was: ‘Do you have anything to help us?’
“Even if you haven’t had a happy experience with language yourself, you shouldn’t expect that your child will struggle as well. Don’t think that they can’t do it: they can.””
‘Difficult’ isn’t in a child’s vocabulary
“A child doesn’t understand ‘this is difficult.’ People have it ingrained that learning a language is too hard, and that fear can be passed on. But kids don’t have that, they just need encouragement.
“I believe children can do anything.”
The name of her publishing company reflects her belief: “It’s about enabling children to do something.
“You give them the time, you give them the encouragement, you give them the materials that they need, and they can achieve incredible things.”
Where to find Ablekids Press in Inverness
Miss Mackay founded Ablekids Press in 2007, and she runs a shop on Market Brae Steps in the Inverness city centre.
Although the Wee MacNessie series may be what catches the eyes of locals and tourists alike, she has a range of other stories, including a bilingual adaptation of the Aesop’s fable ‘The Fox and the Grapes’ and a light-hearted tale about a young witch with a particular allergy that makes it hard to take part in some witchy activities.
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