My Mother's Tongues

My Mother's Tongues – A Weaving of Languages

by Uma Menon, illustrated by Rahele Jomepour Bell

In a sparkling debut authored by a sixteen-year-old daughter of immigrants, this ode to the power of multilingualism gives voice to the lasting benefits of speaking with more than one tongue.

Sumi’s mother can speak two languages, Malayalam and English. And she can switch between them at the speed of sound: one language when talking to Sumi’s grandmother, another when she addresses the cashier. Sometimes with Sumi she speaks a combination of both. Could it be she possesses a superpower? With awe and curiosity, young Sumi recounts the story of her mother’s migration from India and how she came to acquire two tongues, now woven together like fine cloth.

Rahele Jomepour Bell’s inviting illustrations make playful use of visual metaphors, while Uma Menon’s lyrical text, told astutely from a child’s perspective, touches lightly on such subjects as linguistic diversity and accent discrimination (“no matter how they speak, every person’s voice is unique and important”). This welcome debut, penned when the author was still a teenager, is an unabashed celebration of the gift of multilingualism—a gift that can transport people across borders and around the world.

Uma Menon is an author and advocate from Winter Park, Florida. She wrote this, her first book, at the age of 16, and currently studies Public and International Affairs at Princeton University.

She is the author of My Mother’s Tongues, Our Mothers’ Names, and Hands for Language.

Rahele Jomepour Bell came to the United States in 2011 to pursue her dream of being a free international artist and graduated with an MFA in Integrated Visual Arts from Iowa State University in 2015. She is now a full-time freelance picture book illustrator, and she is a full-time assistant professor in the Department of Illustration at Kansas City Art Institute. 

Rahele is originally from Iran and saw the war in her home country when she was just eight years old. Two things made her black-and-white world colorful. One was all-night family gatherings at her Grandma and Grandpa’s house every Friday. Her Grandma would tell Rahele fairy tales that had been told through generations of her family. The other was traveling through books full of images of life and nature made by illustrators from all around the world. She is happiest creating illustrations that make our imaginations travel, that take a new look at old ideas, and reaffirm the viewer of their natural place in this world. 

Candlewick Press, 2024, hardcover, 8.25 x 11 inches, 32 pages.