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Neither of the girls usually reply to us in Italian although they will use some words and phrases like ‘buona notte’ (goodnight) and some amusing Italianisations, like ‘No, Nonna, I haven’t scrived that’ (scrivere = to write). This week when Annie commented that O’s drawings were ‘belli’ (beautiful) she asked, ‘Which is the ‘belli-est?’
A co-edition means that we have sold the rights to the book to a foreign publisher and they publish it in their market as their own publication. They send us their translated text and we print and deliver the finished copies to them. More than 50% of b small’s business is foreign rights and co-editions so our books have appeared in over 35 different languages from French and German to Georgian, Montenegran and Mandarin Chinese.
For the end of the day, the children’s TV selection includes several Italian cartoons: Peppa Pig (my favourite) and most blockbuster series are available in other languages (see our previous blog about this). Although O would prefer to watch Frozen I & II for the nth time and R always calls out for Disney’s Moana, they also get absorbed in the action of the Italian cartoons like Netflix’s Kiki Consegna a Domicilio, about a little witch who does home deliveries on her broomstick, and cope with the more challenging language. A sudden thought, Frozen must be available in Italian – sure enough, Il Regno del Ghiaccio (The Frozen Kingdom). Something to check out next week.
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Cath’s blog will be posted every Monday right here on the b small website – so stay tuned!
