Heather Knorr
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, United States
Heather Knorr was challenged and inspired by her daughter who came home from kindergarten one day and told her that the books in her dual-language (Spanish/English) school did not have characters that looked like her and they weren’t in the original Spanish language. She set out to collaborate with K-12 students as well as her own college students to change that and they have written over 100 bilingual children’s books to date and self-published 38 of them! Along with a fabulous group of bilingual colleagues, she has volunteered to edit them all (search Heather Knorr on Amazon to see them) and is also passionate about volunteering both at home and abroad. COIL has given her the opportunity to take this project to Mexico and collaborate with our neighbors to the south on even more books including a bilingual cookbook featuring recipes from the Yucatan peninsula to be released in the summer of 2025!
“COIL gives us the opportunity to immerse ourselves in our target language and make friends with students and faculty from other countries without having to travel outside of our community. We learn and teach about each other’s culture, customs, food, holiday, religion, expressions, and more, all while building lasting and meaningful academic relationships and friendships.”
Project Information
Partner Institution: Autonomous University of Yucatán (Mexico)
Length of Collaboration: 1 year
Project Summary: 10 bilingual children’s books about topics from the Yucatán peninsula and a bilingual recipe book with 10 recipes from the Yucatán peninsula.