A Polish children's book: Your Journey to Poland

Polish children who are living abroad can fall into one of the multiple names usually used for children of parents born outside of their residence country: expat Polish, third culture kids, are the most common. 

What that means in real life is that Polish children are growing up in between two or more worlds. There is their current residence country, which in many cases is their home, there is Poland and the Polish roots from at least one of the parents, and there is in many instances the world of the second parent, coming from different roots. This can leave your children in a head-scratching mindset, with much deeper implications in the long-run. You, as a parent, want the best of all these worlds for your children: to respect and be in touch with their culture, be it in the form of Polish customs and traditions or be it in taking part in the local Polish community. On the other side, you want them to be integrated into the culture of the host country, so they do not feel like complete outsiders. In the end, most of the time, they end up somewhere in the middle, where they do not feel as fully owning their roots as Polish children born and raised their whole life inside Poland. Still, neither as fully locals, as many times they are not fully accepted or integrated.

The personalised children's book Journey to Poland comes as a support for a fun and exciting starting point in the ongoing discussion about your child’s Polish heritage and links. It is meant for Polish babies, toddlers, and pre-schooler. Still, many Polish expat parents, grandparents and friends see it as unique modern kids' book bringing their own story to life and making it easier to engage with their little ones on a topic the parents care so much about.

While not being a bilingual Polish book, you can nonetheless get it in either English or Polish language, depending on your preference. The storybook for your child touches upon Polish folk culture, traditional dances children can learn and practice with their parents, typical cuisine and what did you like as a child to eat and brushes on other customs and traditions. Your child will be exhilarated by the engaging and appealing illustrations about Poland and curious to keep hearing the personal stories of your time spent there or other family members who still live there.

This personalised children book is really for your child to discover and connect with Poland and what you hold dear about your homeland. Except for the Polish language option, you can put in the story the actual name of your child, as it is written, without having to adapt it or skip diacritics.

While the illustrated children's book enhances the feeling of proudness to be Polish, it presents differences or links the current home country of your child and the journey’s destination country, Poland. The kid would feel the need to ask more and explore more as he grows up. It can be an excellent medium to share the storybook with the non-Polish parent, if that is your case, as then the whole family gets on board this fascinating and fun adventure to your roots and personal stories.

We just love the Polish Christmas traditions, no matter where we are in the world. And our children love to see, hear and taste our memories. We seek out Polish Christmas decorations around the house and tree. We do not have the luxury to go to Polish Christmas markets, but we try to bring the traditional Christmas to our home and make it our own individual experience, which all members of our family can enjoy. We invite friends for our Polish Christmas traditions, around the Christmas day. We cook on the Christmas eve and enjoy to the fullest Polish Christmas food, sometimes adapting the recipes a bit, to match all the tastes in the family. And we greet everyone in our neighbourhood with Christmas greetings and Polish Christmas carols, which picks their curiosity to the maximum. Unfortunately, we cannot have with us every year the Polish grandmother or grandfather, due to the distances and costs of travel and accommodation. Still, our Christmas traditions bring them closer to us, even when they are not physically here.

After we started to have a proper Polish Christmas while living abroad with our family and foreign friends, we liked it so much that we decided to have a better experience during Easter too. Therefore, we re-named it, as the other part of the family was happy to jump on board. They had to learn Polish for Happy Easter and the Polish Easter traditions and food. Well, the last part was less learning and more enjoying. And last year, the local Polish expat association brought to us the joy of Polish children’s songs, all dressed in traditional children’s costumes.

Personalise for free your book, preview it for free and after you order it easily, all online. A Polish bookstore from the comfort of your home, personalised and straightforward for you and the children. Unfortunately, our payment processors do not allow payments in Polish zloty, but you can change the currency into Euro, US Dollar, British Pound or Swiss Franc.

Our family thought hard when and where to do the Polish christening for our newest addition to the family: a Polish baby girl. Another hard thought topic was which Polish baby names to choose for her or actually which Polish American baby names to choose from. It is true when you have too many choices that decisions become harder somehow. To be honest, I wasn’t aware of all the lovely baby shower traditions the first time around. Still, it was decided to instil many beautiful Polish traditions on the new baby. And we created a personalised album storybook for her to tell the story of her first year in the world. This was our favourite of the many Polish baby gifts received from family and friends, even though we got some special ones as her baptism gifts.

For parents who want to keep hearts warm with the Polish heritage, looking into the communities they are living in abroad usually helps. There are many times a Polish school, a Polish Kindergarten or a creche around. Besides, making the Polish language easier to learn and develop, many true and long-lasting friendships are formed between the little ones.

You try to use the Polish language with your kids as often as you can. You want to see their Polish names in the book you are reading to them. You want to share with them how you see the people in Poland form the eyes of the kid in you. Are you also missing seeing the Polish flag and with the good things it means to you personally?

That’s what we believe in, and we try to support in a small way through this book the process. Make use of the Polish alphabet and write them as they are. We always said that personalised books should adapt to the readers.