Raising Bilingual Bambini book launch with Eric Dregni
A fast-paced memoir/travelogue, Raising Bilingual Bambini is Dregni’s passionate testament to the value of an international perspective, loving tribute to the family’s time together in Italy, and bittersweet reflection on what it meant to return to Minnesota. Writing with his signature humor and sincerity, he offers a heartfelt story about family and finding a home together in a new place.
Join Eric at Norway House to learn about his family’s bilingual adventure, listen to a panel of language educators discuss how to make language learning part of your family’s life, and have plenty of time to ask questions.
Raising Bilingual Bambini tells the story Eric Dregni and his wife, Katy, deciding to prepare their future family for the adventure of living abroad. When their children finally arrive, they decide to raise them with a global perspective in a bilingual household: Katy speaking only English to them and Eric speaking only Italian.
Despite their extended family’s confusion about their experiment, they persist through their three kids’ childhoods, sending them to an immersion language camp and working to prepare them for life abroad. Eventually, the family packs up and moves to Florence, where the bambini can stop to see Michelangelo’s David on the way back from school, indulge in fresh pasta and gelato, and learn how to argue like real Italians. Sooner than anyone would like, three months of la dolce vita comes to an end, and they head back to Minnesota, trying to bring a taste of Italian culture home with them.
During the evening, a panel of language-teaching experts will discuss how to help your child become bi-lingual. The members are:
Krista Schweppe, program administrator for language and cultural programs at Mindekirken.
Angela "Johanna" Schneider, dean of Waldsee, German Concordia Language Village
Cliff "Benoit" Schwartz, dean of Lac du Bois, French Concordia Language Village and French teacher in Rochester, MN
Eric Dregni Professor at Concordia St. Paul and former dean of Lago del Bosco, the Italian Concordia Language Village for 20 years
Eric’s book will be available for purchase. Cash bar.
About the Author
Eric Dregni lived in Italy for five years and worked as a travel journalist for a weekly paper. He is author of many books, including In Cod We Trust: Living the Norwegian Dream and Never Trust a Thin Cook and Other Lessons from Italy’s Culinary Capital, both published by the University of Minnesota Press. He is professor of English, journalism, and Italian at Concordia University in St. Paul, Minnesota; leads student trips to Italy every other year; and was dean of the Italian Concordia Language Village for twenty years.
