ABOUT

Kiwi-Chinese. Born in Hong Kong. Grew up in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Mum to three awesome mixed culture kiddos.

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Nessie wrote Hurrah for Yum Cha! during the Great Coronavirus Lockdown of 2020 because it was hard to source not just flour and toilet paper, but also bilingual Chinese/English children's books, particularly with a Cantonese focus. To be fair, multicultural/bilingual books were hard to come by even before the lockdown. She wanted a fun way for her suddenly-mad-for-counting little ones to learn to count and to familiarise them with Chinese numbers as well as a little bit about Chinese culture. It started off as a brilliant plan to make flash cards but next thing she knew she was teaching herself how to draw on a computer and googling "how to print a board book".

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And now here we are.

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BACKGROUND

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Nessie is the creator of the food-blog @bakingequalslove, a medical doctor, ex-corporate lawyer, currently taking a career hiatus to pursue her passion for writing, illustrating, and publishing children's books whilst raising three little humans.

The Sharpes live in beautiful Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand and are passionate about raising their tamariki to embrace their multilingual multicultural background. They use the One Parent One Language method at home to encourage their little ones to speak Cantonese. This has had an added benefit of teaching Mr Sharpe some Chinese too. Bonus.