New British publishing house introduces bilingual books for children from Ukraine

Pineapple Lane, a publishing house that will specialize in creating bilingual books for Ukrainian children who have been displaced, has launched in the UK.

Pineapple Lane is an imprint of Little Toller Books, an independent publishing house founded in 2008 in Dorset, with the aim of promoting classic, nature-based literature from the British Isles.

According to Gracie Cooper, co-founder of Pineapple Lane, the idea for the publishing house came after she organized the Packed with Hope campaign, which collected 10,000 backpacks with clothes, hygiene products, and books for Ukrainian displaced children, which Gracie Cooper distributed with volunteers on the Romanian-Ukrainian border.

“After the Packed with Hope campaign, I realized that I couldn’t stop, that I had to continue, but in a way that I could work in this direction for many years,” Gracie Cooper told LoveReading4kids.

Pineapple Lane has already released eight bilingual books (in English and Ukrainian). Among them: “How War Changed Rondo” and “Colors” by Romana Romanyshyn and Andriy Lesiv, “A Coin” by Ania Khromova and Anna Sarvira, “How Many?” by Halyna Kyrpa and Olha Havrylova, “Mermaids” and “Mr. Catsky, Mira and the Sea” by Oksana Lushchevska and Violetta Borigard, and “The Swing Under the Maple Tree” by Halyna Tkachuk and Oksana Bula.

According to the publisher, the books will fulfill several important tasks at once. First, they will help Ukrainian children learn the language and adapt to it, and second, they will help their British peers learn more about Ukraine. “In the near future, I hope to publish books for children who have been displaced from other countries, but for me it had to start with Ukraine,” Gracie Cooper adds.

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