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Bilingual
By Choice
Raising Kids in Two
(or more!) Languages
Bilingual
By Choice
Raising Kids in Two
(or more!) Languages

Virginie Raguenaud
 First published by Nicholas Brealey Publishing in 2009.

Nicholas Brealey Publishing Nicholas Brealey Publishing

20 Park Plaza, Suite 1115A 3-5 Spafield Street, Clerkenwell
Boston, MA 02116, USA London, EC1R 4QB, UK
Tel: + 617-523-3801 Tel: +44-(0)-207-239-0360
Fax: + 617-523-3708 Fax: +44-(0)-207-239-0370

www.nicholasbrealey.com

© 2009 by Virginie Raguenaud

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any manner
whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of
brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Printed in the United States of America

13 12 11 10 09 1 2 3 4 5

ISBN: 978-1-85788-526-2

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Raguenaud, Virginie.
Bilingual by choice : raising kids in two (or more!) languages / by
Virginie Raguenaud.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-85788-526-2
1. Bilingualism in children. 2. Language acquisition. 3. Multilingualism
in children. 4. Child rearing. 5. Child development. I. Title.
P115.2.R34 2009
404'.2083—dc22
2009033076
 To my parents, Suzy and Jean-Pierre Raguenaud,
for packing up and crossing cultures with three teenagers in tow.

To my daughters Natasha and Sofiya, and my husband Vern,

for continuing this bilingual, nomadic journey with me.
 CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xi
FOREWORD xiii
INTRODUCTION xv
CHAPTER 1 Getting Past the Misconceptions
About Bilingualism 1
A Conscious Choice 1
Language Delay 4
Semilingualism 8
Language Overload 11
Special Needs 13
Taking Charge 16

CHAPTER 2 The Logistics of Raising Bilingual

Children 19
Defining Your Goals 19
Language Strategies 21
When Children Mix Languages 24
Learning to Read 26
Keep Talking From Day One 29
Strategies in Public 31
Staying Flexible but Committed 35

CHAPTER 3 Introducing a Second Language

to a School-Age Child 37
Transferring Skills from One Language to Another 41
ESL Classes 42
Unexpected Factors that Influence the
Learning Curve 44

vii
 Bilingual By Choice

Helping Our Children Integrate 45

Maintaining and Progressing in the First Language 48
Peers 51
Working Together 53

CHAPTER 4 Challenges at Home 55

When Cultures Collide 55
All in the Family 60
Setbacks 68
Creating a Bilingual Home 73

CHAPTER 5 Schooling Options 79

Homeschooling 79
Dual-Language Programs 81
Developmental Bilingual Education Programs 83
Heritage Language Schools 85
Charter Schools 87
Attending School in the Home Country 88

CHAPTER 6 Bilingual and Recommended for

English Honors 91
The Cost of Losing a Heritage Language 92
The Importance of Parent/Teacher Conferences 97
The Future of our Native Languages 100
Promising Changes 103

CHAPTER 7 The Benefits of Bilingualism (for extra

motivation on days when the English-
only movement doesn’t sound so
unreasonable!) 109
Bonding as a Family 110
Academic Skills 111
Higher SAT Scores 112
Access to More Knowledge 113
Self-Esteem 113

viii
 Raising Kids in Two (or more!) Languages

A Balanced Cultural Identity 114

Global-Mindedness 114
College Preparation 115
Competitive Advantages in the Workplace 116
Intercultural Awareness 119

CHAPTER 8 Listen Up!—Helpful Insights from

Experts in Childhood Bilingualism
and Second Language Acquisition
and Encouraging Advice from
Fellow Parents 121

CHAPTER 9 From Puppet Shows to Bilingual

Scrabble: 50 Activities to Enjoy with
Your Kids at Home 137
Online Activities 153

CHAPTER 10 From Bilingual Storytime to Kids’

Language Clubs: 50 Activities in Your
Local Community 157

ix
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

T he idea for this book came during my first presentation at the

2007 Families in Global Transition conference. Many of the
parents I met were struggling to keep their school-age children bilin-
gual and looking for solutions. With her enthusiasm and confidence
in me, Ruth Van Reken encouraged me to put together a proposal and
generously opened the door at Nicholas Brealey Publishing and for
that I’m very grateful.
It is daunting to write a book (with three-year old twins at home!)
but I could not have had a kinder team to work with. It started with
a memorable meeting in Boston with former publisher Patricia
O’Hare, Chuck Dresner, and Jennifer Olsen at the onset of a Decem-
ber blizzard. Although it took me six hours to get home on the bus
(usually a one-hr. ride!), I still had a huge grin on my face when I
finally walked through the door!
Once I finished writing the original manuscript, I worked with
two wonderful editors, Wendy Lazear and Kitty Colton, who helped
me transform my “stream of consciousness” into a well-organized,
easy-to-read manuscript. Thank you, thank you!
To my editor Erika Heilman, I’m grateful for your commitment
to this project and your guidance throughout the editorial process.
I also want to thank Nicholas Brealey for ultimately taking a
chance on a first-time author.
Although the writing process is fairly lonely, I was inspired by the

xi
 Bilingual By Choice

great work and brilliant minds of Colin Baker, Francois Grosjean,

Ellen Bialystok, Fred Genesee, Jim Cummins, Stephen Krasner, Don-
aldo Macedo, and Ofelia García. Thank you for your commitment to
the education of our budding bilingual children.
I’m grateful to all the parents who took the time to answer my
questionnaire and who contributed their inspiring stories in personal
interviews. To my family and friends, local and global, thanks for your
support and insights during the writing process. Finally, I want to
thank my husband Vern for the exciting travel adventures during the
last seventeen years, for your love and patience, and for supporting me
in raising our girls in two (or three!) languages.

xii
 FOREWORD

B ilingualism and bi-literacy are admirable goals for every indi-

vidual. At the National Association for Bilingual Education
(NABE), we embrace this mantra and advocate learning more than
one language and culture. We are now a global society and we must
learn to create unity within diversity.
As tireless advocates who work to influence and create more-
inclusive language policies, more bilingual programs, and better
teacher training, we know that we are investing in our children’s edu-
cation, our nation’s leadership, and our world’s well-being. By using
our native and second languages in everyday life, we develop intercul-
tural understanding and show, by example, that we respect and can
effectively cross cultural and linguistic borders.
Minority language groups are often identified with relatively high
unemployment, low pay, poverty, and powerlessness. However, local
economies, working with community initiatives, can support and sus-
tain minority languages. Bilingualism is valuable to all as it promotes
cultural understanding and gives a competitive edge in an increasing
number of vocations. Supporting our native languages is always a
good investment!
With this in mind, NABE recommends Bilingual by Choice
because it is aligned with our mission to mobilize parents and com-
munities to support the education of bilingual and English language
learners. As Virginie Raguenaud writes in this book, bilingual children

xiii
 Bilingual By Choice

gain intercultural awareness and learn early on that the world is not
defined in the same way by other cultural groups. By teaching our
children to speak another language and to understand another cul-
ture, we are creating a more cooperative generation.
Bilingual By Choice offers crucial information to help parents
overcome today’s challenges in raising and educating bilingual chil-
dren. Together, we need to cultivate a multilingual, multicultural soci-
ety by supporting and promoting policies, programs, pedagogy, and
research that yield academic success, value native language, lead to
English proficiency, and respect cultural and linguistic diversity.
This practical book offers important strategies that can be imple-
mented right away by parents to make sure that their children become
active and contributing participants in this world. It explains the ben-
efits of bilingualism, shows parents how to raise and keep their children
bilingual, addresses the cultural challenges at home, and helps parents
commit to bi-literacy to ensure their children’s academic success.
As former NABE parent representative and Vice-President, I
encourage parents and educators to read Bilingual By Choice and to
experience all the positive effects bilingualism offers to our world
today.

Rossana Ramírez-Boyd, Ph. D.

Parent Representative 2001–2003
former Vice-President 2008–2009, National Association for Bilingual
Education

xiv
 INTRODUCTION

A shift is happening right now. Powerful institutions are coming

to realize that people who speak a second language, and under-
stand different cultural nuances, make great contributions to this
country in national security, diplomacy, international business, health
care, the arts, education, tourism, and many other areas.
This shift in perception is going to help us as we commit to rais-
ing our children with two languages. It will mean more support from
our schools and our communities as we help our children sustain
their first language and excel in English. But our children’s bilingual
future—with all its life-changing social, academic, and economic
benefits—will require a high level of commitment and creativity on
our part. We still need to expose many misconceptions about child-
hood bilingualism and second-language acquisition.
In a recent interview, linguist and Professor Emeritus at the Uni-
versity of Southern California, Dr. Stephen Krashen said, “Bilingual-
ism in the U.S. only has a future if it is explained to the public and the
research becomes well known.” When I started my master’s in inter-
cultural relations, I came across extensive research on the identity
development of bicultural and bilingual children that finally gave me
a clearer picture of what I had lived through as a twelve-year-old new-
comer from France.

xv
 Bilingual By Choice

But I also realized that this valuable information rarely leaves aca-
demic circles and rarely reaches the people who, like me, desperately
need it to make sense of their uprooted childhoods.
This book is my attempt to share the knowledge. As you follow
the text, you will see that my bicultural identity shows up regularly.
The French side of me likes to listen to the experts and quietly take
notes. I get inspired by their efforts to advance the cause of bilingual
children. The American side of me likes to engage in a more spirited
form of learning: honest insights from parents, who can expose all the
complexities—and sometimes frustrations—of raising bilingual chil-
dren. In the mix, I have also added my own narrative of my relocation
to the U.S. and how my mother—born and raised in Belgium—and
my father—born and raised in Madagascar—succeeded in raising
three “late” bilingual and multicultural daughters.
When I decided to raise my twin daughters, Natasha and Sofiya,
bilingually, I came across several books that focused on the logistics of
creating a bilingual environment at home: Who will speak what lan-
guage? How much exposure will the children get? But my conversa-
tions with other parents made me realize that we had to take it a step
further, looking deeply at the obstacles and finding out why certain
families were successful at raising bilingual children and why many
failed.
I also wanted to explore the cultural issues in our lives that can-
not be ignored. For most of us, bilingualism is not just about raising
children to speak two languages. It’s also about raising bicultural chil-
dren who learn early on that there are different ways to see the world
and different perspectives about what’s right and wrong; children who
come to know that our truths are just that—ours. Bicultural children
gain intercultural awareness and learn early on that the world as they
know it is not being defined in the same ways by other cultural groups.
By teaching our children to speak another language and to under-
stand another culture, we’re creating a smarter and more cooperative
generation.

xvi
 Raising Kids in Two (or more!) Languages

The subject of bilingualism in this country, unfortunately, often

turns into a political discussion of race and power because not every-
one is given access to the resources needed to excel in two languages.
In some circles the push for bilingualism is also grossly misinter-
preted as immigrants’ desire to to sustain their first language at the
expense of English. That’s not the case. Immigrants are learning Eng-
lish much faster than their predecessors because they understand that
it leads to extraordinary opportunities. However, many of us also
know that if our children acquire our native language, in addition to
learning English, they will have a brighter future.
Although more than 54 million of us speak a language other than
English at home, this country is still defined as monolingual. That’s
puzzling, since even our Founding Fathers were multilingual! Ben-
jamin Franklin spoke six languages, including English, French, Span-
ish, German, Italian, and Latin. Thomas Jefferson could read Greek,
Latin, French, Spanish, and Italian. He often wrote to friends about
the importance of speaking foreign languages to better connect with
the rest of the world—a message we should all pass on to our children.
The reality today is that this country needs well-educated bilin-
gual and biliterate Americans in almost every field, at the national,
state, and local levels—from the National Security Agency, recruiting
individuals with language skills in Arabic, Chinese, Dari, Farsi, Pashtu,
Russian, Sub-Saharan African, Turkish, and Urdu, to our public
schools, which face a critical shortage of qualified bilingual teachers.
If there’s a time to give bilingualism a future, it’s now. Like it or not,
globalization is here to stay; we might as well make it work for us!

xvii
 CHAPTER 1

Getting Past the

Misconceptions About
Bilingualism

Ethnic and national conflicts are most often precipitated

when nation-states ignore demands for greater cultural
and linguistic democracy, not—as is commonly assumed—
when they accommodate them.
Stephen May, author of Language and Minority Rights

A Conscious Choice
As a bilingual mom-to-be, I was curious to see which language would
feel most natural when I first met my twin girls. Although I associate
French with family and nurturing, English has been my community
language for the last twenty-seven years. I’ve spoken English in my
graduate studies, my work, and my twelve-year marriage. For some
bilingual parents, the language choice is not always obvious and

1
 Bilingual By Choice

sometimes only reveals itself the first time we hold our children. On our
first day together in the hospital, the girls and I found ourselves bond-
ing in French, and we’ve continued to do so ever since. I have to say,
speaking French in the delivery room felt especially sweet and intimate
with a nine-member crew of doctors, nurses, and an anesthesiologist
working around us! (Twin deliveries create quite a commotion!)
Raising a bilingual child—either from birth or after relocation—
is a necessity for many parents. We want to keep family ties intact
and share our cultural selves with our children. However, as parents
we have to make a conscious choice to keep our children bilingual. It’s
a common misconception that children will simply pick up languages
if they’re exposed to them. It takes commitment and creativity at
home and in our communities for children to learn and, more impor-
tantly, maintain two languages. Which is probably why we all know at
least one adult who’s expressed regret at having lost a parent’s native
language. I believe we can succeed if we pay attention to the research,
if we listen to the insights of successful bilingual adults, and if we
learn as a family to mindfully integrate our native language and our
cultural traditions in our daily lives.

EARLY SKILLS

To start, the research reminds us that learning two languages from

birth is as natural as hearing and speaking only one language. McGill
University Professor Fred Genesee, a well-respected scholar in child-
hood bilingualism, found that infants are able to discriminate between
the sounds of two languages from a very early age, months before
they can produce any sounds. Studies show that even the babbling of
infants is language specific. (1) An infant with a Spanish father and an
English-speaking mother will use Spanish sounds with his father and
English sounds with his mother.
Research shows that the ability to hear different phonetic pro-
nunciations is sharpest before the age of three. (2) Infants and toddlers

2
 Raising Kids in Two (or more!) Languages

can differentiate a wider variety of language sounds than older chil-

dren. Under normal circumstances, children who are exposed to
two languages from birth will learn to speak them with a native accent.
Although everyone, at any age, should be encouraged to learn a sec-
ond language, the biggest difference between children’s and adult’s
bilingual development will be the ability to develop native-like
pronunciation.
Another early benefit is the development of metalinguistic aware-
ness as children learn to differentiate early on the two language sys-
tems used and understand that there are two (or more) words to name
one particular object. (3) Before their second birthday, Natasha and
Sofiya made the connection that French and English represented two
separate languages.
As I sat Natasha down one day in her highchair and wrapped the
belt around her waist, she looked at me and said, “Papa says seatbelt
. . . Maman dit ceinture.” Even though I’m not a linguist, I could feel
at that moment that something amazing was happening in her brain
as she reflected on our home’s language mix. Out of curiosity I
quizzed her further and asked what she said. Natasha without hesita-
tion replied “Belt!” while Sofiya smiled at me and said, “Ceinture,
Maman.” (They like to contradict one another, so with twins I’m
guaranteed at least one answer in French!)
According to well-known Canadian scholar Ellen Bialystok,
author of Language Processing in Bilingual Children, this ability to
reflect on language as a system is “a crucial component of cognitive
development because of its documented relation to language ability,
symbolic development, and literacy skills.” This awareness often leads
to a stronger appreciation for reading. (4) Children who are exposed
to two languages learn to think about language and analyze it, the
way travelers to another country start to think about their own behav-
iors and assumptions. This flexibility and creativity show up in clever
ways as our children learn to speak and strengthen their budding
bilingual cognitive skills. In these captivating early stages of language

3
 Bilingual By Choice

development, we’re witnessing what will soon be an exceptional lan-

guage repertoire that will give them unique ways to express them-
selves and better communicate with the world around them.
Unfortunately, personal language choices and the benefits of early
bilingualism are often overshadowed by negative misconceptions gen-
erated in the media, in schools, and in communities at large. It’s impos-
sible to discuss bilingualism in the U.S. without encountering fear,
ignorance, and prejudice. It’s important for parents who are reluctant
to raise their children with two languages to understand the ways in
which certain aspects of childhood bilingualism are misinterpreted or
exaggerated. We must also be aware that our own attitudes and beliefs
play a crucial role in helping our children sustain their languages as
they grow. For example, if a parent has been made to believe that his
native language is less relevant than English, his child will soon believe
that message as well.
To make sure that our children reap all the lifelong cultural,
social, and economic benefits of speaking two languages, let’s look at
how scientific research objectively dispels the most common miscon-
ceptions of early bilingualism.

Language Delay
Not all children develop language at the same rate—a fact that some-
times confuses parents who relate language delay to their bilingual
choice. In our personal experience there was a wide gap between
Natasha’s and Sofiya’s language development. Natasha spoke two-
and three-word combinations well before her second birthday, while
Sofiya developed other skills and began two- and three-word combi-
nations at around two-and-a-half years old. At first, we wondered
why Sofiya wasn’t speaking as much as her sister. But we noticed that
she was making progress nonetheless, adding new words to her vocab-

4
 Raising Kids in Two (or more!) Languages

ulary and following directions, so we decided to focus on what she was

accomplishing in her own right instead of comparing her to her sis-
ter. Once we had made the decision to raise our girls bilingually—to
understand different perspectives, to communicate and think
creatively in two languages, to connect with people from diverse
backgrounds—it seemed trivial to worry about whether they said their
first words at 9 months or at 15 months!
When you read about language-delay issues from parents from
different cultures, it soon becomes obvious that everyone—family,
neighbors, pediatricians—bases their comments on cultural values
that represent only one perspective. In her book How Language Comes
to Children, psycholinguist Benedicte de Boysson-Bardies explains that,
in general, “American mothers encourage their child to talk and, above
all, to name . . . . while French mothers do not watch for linguistic
performances, feeling instead that the child ought to be happy and
well behaved and should play a great deal.” She adds, “Thus, too, Ger-
man mothers expect their children to speak later than do Costa Rican
mothers.” (5) Of course these are generalizations but they point to the
central role culture plays in children’s language development. Parents
around the world obviously have different expectations for their
children.
Because of the emphasis in our U.S. culture on “doing everything
early,” the term language delay is often misunderstood. There is such
a wide time frame for reaching each language milestone that parents
unwillingly find themselves comparing their children’s development
with other children around them. Even with the best intentions, it’s
difficult not to! However, according to the American Speech-
Language-Hearing Association, only three to ten percent of children
will experience language delays. (6) Here are the association’s general
guidelines for parents raising bilingual children: “Like other children,
most bilingual children speak their first words by the time they are one
year old (e.g., “mama” or “dada”). By age two, most bilingual children

5
 Bilingual By Choice

can use two-word phrases (e.g., “my ball” or “no juice”). These are the
same language developmental milestones seen in children who learn
only one language.” (7) Most speech pathologists and pediatricians
agree that parents should watch for the more serious symptoms to
keep things in perspective. They include:
• not babbling by 12 to 15 months
• not understanding simple commands by 18 months
• not talking by the age of two
• not using sentences by the age of three
• not being able to tell a simple story by the age of four or five (8)

In 2002, cognitive neuroscientist Laura-Ann Petitto and her col-

league Ioulia Kovelman looked at different stages of brain develop-
ment and matched them with four different time frames of bilingual
language exposure. They concluded that early and extensive exposure
to a second language is beneficial for brain development. According
to Petitto, “This will occur without any of the dreaded ‘language con-
tamination’ often attributed to early bilingual exposure.” (9)
Although it often is the most pressing issue for new parents rais-
ing bilingual children, there is simply no scientific data that proves
that hearing and speaking two languages from birth will cause a lan-
guage delay. As the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association
stipulates, “Children all over the world learn more than one language
without developing speech or language problems. Bilingual children
develop language skills just as other children do.” (10)

ENOUGH LANGUAGE EXPOSURE?

Language delay may occur, however, if a child has sparse exposure to

one of his languages. For example, if the parent who speaks the home
language is also away at work most often, it will take much family
and community support and resources to make sure the child hears

6
 Raising Kids in Two (or more!) Languages

and speaks that language enough with other adults and peers to reach
the desired level of fluency. If parents worry about how much exposure
their children are getting in the home language, the first step, accord-
ing to researchers, is to get a detailed picture of how much daily input
they receive in and outside the home. It’s like figuring out how much
you spend a month—until you write it all down, you don’t realize that
daily café latte is costing you $800 a year!
Although researchers have not agreed on the minimum amount
of exposure needed for a child to master a language, they agree that
parents will be more successful if they monitor the situation care-
fully. According to Professor Genesee, “Children are capable of
learning two languages at the same time at the same rate as mono-
lingual children provided they get continuous and rich exposure to
both over an extended period of time.” (11) Parents need to provide
their children with daily opportunities to learn and repeat a rich and
varied vocabulary. It’s clear that if a child has sparse or sporadic
exposure to one of his languages, he will not meet the expected mile-
stones in language acquisition and is less likely to become bilingual.

CONSISTENCY

Language delay may also occur if a parent unexpectedly switches from

one language to another, especially when the child is under age six.
(12) This can happen following a relocation, for example, or because of
pressure from school officials to drop the home language. The lan-
guage we use to identify the world around us, and to communicate
our feelings, our beliefs, and our values, is difficult to change without
causing damage to the emotional bond we’ve created with our chil-
dren. Tracey Tokuhama-Espinosa, author of Raising Multilingual Chil-
dren, describes her personal experience with abruptly changing
languages. When her youngest son was one-year-old, the family
moved from Ecuador to Boston, and Tokuhama-Espinosa decided to

7
 Bilingual By Choice

switch from English to Spanish, to give the minority language more

exposure.
Tokuhama-Espinosa and her husband spoke English together in
the community, but spoke only Spanish at home. The consequences
were quite alarming. In her book, the author reports that her son’s
second year basically consisted of animal sounds, with very few words
in the mix.
It was only after another move to Ecuador, then Switzerland,
when the family had switched back to their original plan, with
Tokuhama-Espinosa speaking English again at home, that their son,
at age three, started to figure out his language environment. Based on
her personal experience and her extensive research, Tokuhama-
Espinosa concluded, “Switching languages on a small child, especially
with everything else being changed at the same time (house, school,
friends, food) can create great confusion and cause extreme stress and
even rejection of the language, the country, and the parent.” (13)
Since each child is unique and each family has its own way of
being, parents ultimately will know if something doesn’t feel right in
their child’s language development. It’s important to note that if you
suspect a hearing problem or a potential disorder, it’s always better to
consult with a pediatrician who can recommend a bilingual speech
therapist or a counselor for proper evaluation. If there is an issue, the
earlier it’s detected, the better.

Semilingualism
When well-meaning people find out that you’re planning to raise
your children in two languages, they may express concern that your
strategy could lead to semilingualism—a lack of proficiency in either
language as compared to monolingual children. Semilingualism
means your children may have a smaller vocabulary, poor grammar,
or trouble expressing complex thoughts and creativity. (14) It’s easy

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 Raising Kids in Two (or more!) Languages

to see how the issue of semilingualism could be used to discourage or

scare parents who wish to pass on their native language to their chil-
dren. No parent wants their children to be “deficient” in their lan-
guages. However, most experts agree that fears of semilingualism are
misguided. As Professor Ulrike Jessner, author of Linguistic Aware-
ness in Multilinguals, explains, “Multilinguals are still seen as multi-
ple monolinguals in one, which most of the time necessarily leads to
the treatment of multilinguals as incompetent speakers in each of
their languages.” (15)

SOCIAL AND POLITICAL PRESSURES

As more and more research is conducted on how bilinguals use their

extensive language skills, scholars are realizing that semilingualism, or
comparing language proficiency of bilinguals to monolinguals, is not
helpful. The social and political power issues at work are obvious when,
for instance, monolinguals mention semilingualism in connection with
immigrants who want to maintain their native language, but not in
connection with the education of children of diplomats.
It is more beneficial for our children’s critical language develop-
ment to discuss ways in which parents, schools, and communities can
work together to help young bilinguals enrich their vocabulary in both
languages with more activities, books, and language programs.
If a child experiences a language delay in one of his languages, it
can often be traced to an economic, social, or educational factor.
Researchers agree that with better opportunities in school, better
resources for teachers, less racism and discrimination, and more soci-
etal support for foreign languages, a child can learn to speak two lan-
guages. Instead of focusing on semilingualism as a reason not to
encourage bilingualism, we’re better off finding ways to get children
past the stage of poor grammar or low vocabulary.
We need to give children access to more books and encourage
more parents to read with their children on a daily basis.

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 Bilingual By Choice

BALANCED BILINGUALISM?

Balanced bilingualism is a myth. Bilinguals use their languages in dif-

ferent situations, to discuss different topics; therefore they will never
have the exact same proficiency in both languages. But even bilingual
adults struggle with this unrealistic pressure to speak both languages
perfectly. Bilinguals sometimes feel inferior to monolinguals—one
mom calling herself “lazy”—when they struggle to express themselves
in one of their languages. We can be hard on ourselves, but we can
always improve our language skills, and we don’t need to belittle our
accomplishments as bilinguals and all the cultural, social, and eco-
nomic benefits we have acquired along the way. Although I identify
myself as bilingual, I’m probably described as semilingual by some of
my French relatives. For example, most of my research, writing, and
studies on the subject of childhood bilingualism have been in English.
So when I discuss this book with my French relatives, I do struggle to
explain it all in French. On the other hand, in English I’ve struggled
with basic vocabulary words while playing the board game Pictionary,
believe it or not, which always makes my in-laws hesitate to be on my
team! For some reason, I just never learned the words “gangplank,”
“paddy wagon,” or “matterhorn.”
Everyone differs in their language proficiency, regardless of how
many languages we speak. The focus of the conversation should be on
how we can improve our skills and our children’s skills as bilinguals,
rather than on whether we should drop one language for fear of semi-
lingualism. It also helps when we do our part as parents to better edu-
cate the people around us—friends, co-workers, teachers—about what
it means to us to be bilingual, how we use our languages in different
circumstances, and the important role that bilingualism plays in our
familial and social relationships.

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 Raising Kids in Two (or more!) Languages

Language Overload
Even those of us who understand the benefits of bilingualism and
whole-heartedly wish to pass on our native language to our children
sometimes suffer a lingering fear that we’re overloading our young
children’s brains. We worry because we’re looking at the situation
from an adult’s perspective. We inadvertently underestimate our chil-
dren’s ability to learn. But if we approach language learning in the
same loving and gentle way in which we encouraged their first steps
and their first drawings, we don’t need to worry. Every piece of
empirical evidence I have found on the subject—U.S.-based and
international—shows that, under normal circumstances, children can
learn two (or more) languages, naturally and effortlessly, if they need
them to communicate.
The brain of a child is remarkably malleable, according to scien-
tists, and it provides significant clues to the development of a second
or third language. A group of neurologists who studied the brains of
children who experienced a stroke around the ages of six and seven
found that, surprisingly, language development was not affected but
was actually rerouted to a different part of the brain. For an adult, on
the other hand, the same kind of injury will often cause a permanent
loss of language. (16) This startling evidence of the brain’s plasticity
in early childhood helps explain why, under normal circumstances,
young children are capable of handling a second or third language
without being burdened by it. As bilingual speech-language patholo-
gist Grace Libardo Alvarez concludes, “Infants have a biological
capacity for multilingualism.” (17)
There are a few things parents can keep in mind when they feel
anxious about language overload:

• Don’t try to speed things up—let your child’s language devel-

opment happen naturally, as you did when you watched him
take his first steps.

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 Bilingual By Choice

• Talk to other parents with older bilingual children and learn

from their experience.
• Don’t project your own difficulties in learning a second or
third language onto your child’s language development.
• Stay positive and enthusiastic. Our own attitudes and assump-
tions will greatly influence how our children approach lan-
guage learning. Encouragement and optimism can go a long
way.
Theodore Andersson, author of A Guide to Family Reading in Two
Languages, believes that “We grossly underestimate the capacities of
children.” He offers this advice: “By observing their own children
closely, by responding fully to their questions, and by surrounding
them with interesting materials and activities, parents can learn some-
thing of their children’s potential and refrain from inhibiting their
learning by limiting their expectations.” (18)
Some people argue that children of low socioeconomic status
have enough hardships and shouldn’t be burdened with the extra
demands of bilingualism. Their concern may be well-meaning but
it’s a devastating misconception.
Everywhere we can see the economic, cultural, educational, and
social benefits of sustaining a first language while learning English.
Our world languages create and reinforce our ties to our families and
to our language communities and contribute to our social and psy-
chological well-being. For children who relocate to a new culture, the
home language can become their lifeline that helps them connect their
past to the present. Maintaining their native language gives them a
better sense of who they are and where they come from.
When we encourage young children—of all socioeconomic
groups—to develop both languages, we’re not just helping them inte-
grate their different cultural selves; we’re also guiding them toward
more academic success, healthy social relationships with both cul-
tural groups, more tolerance and acceptance toward other people, and

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 Raising Kids in Two (or more!) Languages

a stronger financial future. As author Tokuhama-Espinosa reminds

us, “A child’s life experiences up to age seven form her treasure chest
of neuro-connections. What she has been lucky enough to hear, smell,
taste, touch, and see up to this point are the basis for all future learn-
ing.” (19) (I like to remind myself about that every time I’m about to
embark on another international flight with two preschoolers!)

Special Needs
New parents often have a lingering fear that exposing our children to
two or more languages will somehow lead to unnecessary stress and
potentially cause language disorders. A Science Daily article from Sep-
tember 2008 was headlined “Bilingual children more likely to stutter.”
In fact, the research in the article doesn’t show that bilingualism
causes stuttering, but the authors conclude that children would ben-
efit from waiting to learn a second language because “. . . this reduces
the chance of starting to stutter and aids the chances of recovery later
in childhood.” (20)
The problem with this kind of research is that it often overlooks the
social, emotional, and cultural factors surrounding each child, and thus
creates misleading information. For me, reading this article was like
being told that it’s not prudent to have twins because there are risks
involved. My reality is that the benefits far outweigh the risks. When it
comes to languages (and children!), I can’t live with just one. Natasha
and Sofiya also need two languages in order to communicate with their
two families.
It’s true that there are bilinguals who stutter, but the research does
not prove that learning two languages from birth is the cause. Among
many research findings, an extensive survey done at the world-
renowned University College London concluded that “There is no dif-
ference between monolingual and bilingual speakers in terms of their
likelihood of having stuttering in their life.” (21)

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 Bilingual By Choice

UNDERSTANDING STUTTERING

First, experts emphasize that stuttering in children—or disruptions in

their speech—as they learn to communicate is common and is con-
sidered a normal phase of language development. (22) According to
the National Stutter Association, children will typically start to stutter
between the ages of two-and-a-half and five, and about five percent of
children stutter. Although there are no known causes for stuttering
and no simple cure for it, many children can greatly improve their
speech with the help of a specialist. In addition, according to the NSA,
“Recent research shows that as many as three out of four children
who show signs of early stuttering will recover within the first year or
so after they start stuttering.” (23)
Instead of asking if bilingualism causes stuttering, a more helpful
question, perhaps, is: How can we as parents help our children if they
start to stutter? As parents we can find ways to keep our languages alive
without causing a heightened sense of anxiety in our children. Even
when parents feel they have to “force” their children to speak the home
language, for fear that the community language will take center stage,
it’s important to keep it light-hearted and gentle. A child should never
be scolded or punished when it comes to developing language skills.
Researchers agree that our approach, attitude, and expectations as
parents greatly influence the process of raising bilingual children.
Childhood bilingualism expert Barbara Abdelilah-Bauer, author of
the book Le Defi des Enfants Bilingues (The Challenge of Bilingual
Children), recommends that parents who see symptoms of stuttering
in their bilingual children should ease the language rules around the
house and follow the child’s lead in terms of which language he prefers
to use to express himself. (24) It makes sense to reduce the pressure
and tension around a child who stutters; to speak clearly in front of
the child; and to not make her feel self-conscious in any way. The
solution is not, however, to give up speaking our home language, but
rather to become more flexible with our expectations.

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 Raising Kids in Two (or more!) Languages

EARLY DETECTION

When it comes to all language disorders, early detection is key. Parents

who believe in their gut that something is wrong need to speak with
a specialist. As you search for the right psychologist or speech language
pathologist, make sure that this person understands childhood bilin-
gualism and takes your language background into consideration.
According to Professor Colin Baker, author of The Care and Education
of Young Bilinguals, to get an accurate diagnosis, “Assessment of the
child must be completed in both or all languages, using tests normed
on bilinguals, and avoiding comparison with monolinguals in phonol-
ogy, vocabulary, syntax, and fluency.” (25)
Unfortunately, misdiagnosis is fairly common. Parents need to
stay informed and alert, and ask for a second opinion if need be.
Bilingual speech pathologist Deborah Jill Chitester notes that in her
profession, “Hispanic origin is often inappropriately referred to as
bilingual.” She explains, “In my experience, teachers and parents
misuse the word when speaking about second-language children
who are in the process of acquiring English. This often occurs in
bilingual speech evaluations that are conducted by those without
proper training . . . . The first line will read: ‘This bilingual male
only speaks Spanish . . . .’ Bilingual means near-native communica-
tive competence in both languages, so this statement contradicts
itself.” (26)
The repercussions of a misdiagnosis are obviously enormous, con-
sidering that the most common recommendation parents receive is to
drop the home language to make the problem go away. For most of us,
that’s simply not an option. One mom, Dr. Aurore Adamkiewicz,
author of Beyond Natural Cures, is happy she didn’t give up on her lan-
guages. She shares her poignant story:
We raised our kids trilingually and we had issues with our oldest one.
We were “attacked” by our families, who insisted we were “ruining”
our children with language . . . up until then, my husband’s family

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 Bilingual By Choice

had insisted we were hurting our children with “healthy food!” Well,
it turns out my son was autistic, and it had nothing to do with the
languages . . . or whole-grain bread. . . . I will say, though, that our
efforts were not in vain. . . . My son, when he started talking at 6, was
able to remember all of the different languages and music I had
taught him! He was the youngest American invited to study at Inter-
lochen (Center for the Arts), at 8 years old; this is something that we
would never have imagined. It was all there in his head—tucked
away. It was a little jewel for me. (27)

Professor Baker, along with other well-respected scholars, con-

cludes that it is “very unlikely that bilingualism is linked with, or a
direct cause of, the following special needs: visual or hearing impair-
ment, learning disabilities such as dyslexia and developmental aphasia,
severe subnormality in cognitive development, behavioral problems
and physical handicaps. Membership in a language minority may coex-
ist with such conditions, but does not determine them.” (28)

Taking Charge
Bilingualism in the U.S. is a tough sell. There are widespread miscon-
ceptions—unnecessary distractions—that too often mislead parents
who have the ability and the language resources to give their children
the gift of bilingualism but who hesitate, or, worse, turn their backs on
their home language. The first time I saw Dr. Tove Skutnabb-Kangas’s
book Linguistic Genocide in Education—or Worldwide Diversity and
Human Rights? I was taken aback by the blunt title. But as I talked to
parents, and as I read U.S.-based and international literature on bilin-
gualism, I realized that we are truly robbing families if we take away
their language and cultural rights. Sometimes it’s done at the federal
level, through language policies and cutbacks on bilingual programs.
Sometimes it’s at the local level; for instance, school administra-
tors may tell a parent that if she continues to speak Arabic at home,
her child will be placed in special education classes. I also realized

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 Raising Kids in Two (or more!) Languages

that parents should not underestimate the power they have to success-
fully raise bilingual and multicultural children, even if their commu-
nities are not in sync yet.
Ultimately it’s up to us as parents to make it happen. When a
potential problem or worry creeps up, trust your instincts. You know
what’s best for your child. You know when your child is hungry. You
know when she needs a hug. You know what she needs to be happy
before anyone else around her does. Every day, when you choose to
speak and read to her in your native language, you strengthen an inti-
mate bond with her, you expose her to more and more vocabulary, you
pique her curiosity with fun and creative activities, and you open her
eyes to meaningful cultural traditions and values that are important to
your family. You create a treasure chest in your own home. Through
it all, remember that her knowledge of languages and her rich cultural
heritage mean that the world will soon open up to her.

17
 CHAPTER 2

The Logistics of Raising

Bilingual Children

In the total sociocultural environment, it is the parents,

especially the mothers and their childrearing practices, who
have been proven to have the greatest influence.
Professor Cigdem Kagitcibasi, Koc University Rumelifeneri Yolu,
Istanbul, Turkey

Defining Your Goals

When we decide to raise our children with two languages, it’s helpful
to define our goals and priorities and then share them with our fam-
ilies and close friends. We need to ask ourselves: Do I want my chil-
dren to simply be able to communicate with our family? Do I want
them to be able to read and write in the home language? Might they
someday pursue their studies in the language? If so, how can I provide
access to academic vocabulary? What can I do to help them become
bicultural? Can I give them firsthand exposure to my native culture?

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 Bilingual By Choice

Can I make the time to read to them every day? What resources—
books, music, language schools, immersion programs, and cultural
events—are available to us in the community or on the Internet?
My family’s personal goal is for our girls to one day be able to
speak, read, and write fluently in French and English. We need all the
support we can get to help the children maintain and progress in
French. It sometimes means reminding visiting relatives and friends
to speak French around the children, even if it’s tempting for them to
practice their English when they come to the U.S.!
According to Francois Grosjean, author of Life with Two Lan-
guages, “Children do not acquire (or only partly acquire) the minor-
ity language if there isn’t community or educational support, or other
motivational factors that make using the language a natural thing.”
During an interview about his personal family situation, Professor
Grosjean alluded to the dilemma we all face. “Although we wanted
our children to be bilingual,” he writes, “living in an English environ-
ment like the United States made this very difficult.” (1) His family
lived here decades ago, but his comment still holds true today.
Global migration is working in our favor, however. The 2007
American Community Survey states that one in five people living in
the U.S. speaks a language other than English at home; that’s more
than 54,000,000 people. (2) We should be able to create abundant
speaking opportunities just by getting together with our neighbors!
And the numbers are growing every year. The goal is to build a strong
support network that includes family and friends, to speak up about
our goals for our children’s future, and to explain why it’s important
to expand their minds by passing on our native language and culture.

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 Raising Kids in Two (or more!) Languages

Language Strategies
ONE LANGUAGE—ONE ENVIRONMENT

The common language strategy One Language One Environment

often appeals to parents who share the same native language at home.
It guarantees children constant and uninterrupted exposure when
both parents fully commit to speaking only their native language when
they step over their home’s threshold. Irene A. Marquez, founder of
Los Bilingual Writers, believes that her parents’ resolution was a key
factor in helping her become bilingual. She writes, “[I] would come in
and I’d start telling her about my day at school, and she’d completely
ignore me, as if I wasn’t there. My mother and my father both spoke
English, but my mother insisted that we speak Spanish at home. So
immediately I would have to switch. I’d walk in the door, and I’d imme-
diately go into Spanish. I’d walk back out the door, and immediately
go into English. And that’s how most of us become bilingual. . . . In
Spanish we have a saying that the person who speaks two languages is
as good as two people.” (3)
The first few years at home, before preschool or kindergarten
starts, is the best time to give your child a solid foundation in your
native language. Some parents might worry about their child’s level of
English when it comes time to head off to school, but the reality is that
children are eager and motivated to learn their classmates’ language
and will quickly reach the same level. The first weeks or months at
school can include extra assistance from a compassionate teacher to
help with the transition, but it’s clear that if you choose to live in the
U.S. permanently, English will very quickly become your children’s
dominant language. But they can never get back those first few years at
home of consistent exposure to your native language.

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 Bilingual By Choice

ONE PARENT ONE LANGUAGE

In multilingual marriages, the One Parent One Language method is

often the preferred strategy. Sometimes both parents each share their
minority language with the children, and English is introduced later
on in the community and in school as a third language. Or, as is the
case in our household, one parent speaks a minority language and
the other parent speaks the community language. OPOL establishes
clarity and gives the child distinct boundaries. Common sense tells us
that it might be easier for a child to keep her languages separate if she
can identify one parent with one language. This strategy struck me as
wise when Natasha, at age two-and-a-half, made a game of repeating
every single word I said throughout the day. It’s clear that if I had mixed
my languages then, she would have mixed English and French in the
same sentences as well. Children do love to repeat everything we say!
The main advantage of OPOL is that it helps parents balance the
amount of language input. It’s hard to keep track of how much lan-
guage exposure our children are getting when we’re busy multitask-
ing and keeping everyone fed, clean, and happy. This method
provides the best assurance that your native language is not over-
shadowed by the dominant language of the community. I don’t know
about you, but I don’t want to start drawing charts to figure out if my
children are hearing enough of my native language. I find it easier to
simply speak French to them every day. The reality is, if we truly
believe that their lives will be richer if they fully embrace their fam-
ily’s cultural and linguistic backgrounds, then we need to do our part
and integrate our native language into our daily activities. When we
create a deep emotional bond with our children in one language, it
often feels awkward and unnatural to suddenly continue that rela-
tionship in a different language. (Bonding in our language will serve
us well when obstacles come up during the school years!)
Although research shows—and parents will tell you—that chil-
dren respond well to One Parent One Language because of its consis-

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 Raising Kids in Two (or more!) Languages

tency, for some multilingual families it’s difficult to keep languages

separate. Being bilingual is more complicated than turning on one
language while turning off the other one. Even scholars struggle to
agree on the best language practices for encouraging bilingualism. In
fact, there is no perfect strategy. It’s complex; strong social, cultural,
and political factors come into play. Even when families follow OPOL,
languages inevitably mix, since we often use a different language with
our partner than with our children. At home I try not to mix lan-
guages, but English does creep in once in a while, especially when the
four of us are having a conversation together. As one parent explained,
“In general, it’s one parent-one language, but life is life, and it often
gets mixed up.” (4)
The good news: many parents report that they mixed languages
from the start, and their children still managed to become bilingual
with no traumatic aftermath. As Professor Genesee explains, even if
parents mix languages, most children will learn to separate their lan-
guages if most of the people they come in contact with—relatives and
people in the community—speak only one language at a time. (5)
In the end, the most important guideline when deciding on a lan-
guage strategy is to choose what feels the most natural to both parents,
and then support one another steadfastly in your decision. (Even if
your in-laws, or your friends, or your child’s preschool staff don’t agree!
It seems everyone around us will have an opinion—as you might have
already noticed.) All bilingual children and adults have times when one
language takes center stage, times when we find creative ways to incor-
porate both languages in our lives, and times when we need to work
harder to progress in the weaker language. The important thing for
parents is to start speaking our native language from day one and keep
it relevant in our daily lives in fun and enriching ways.

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 Bilingual By Choice

When Children Mix Languages

Mixing languages is an emotionally charged topic, and there have
been entire books dissecting the subject. You will quickly find that
everyone has a personal opinion on mixing languages, or code-
switching, as it’s sometimes referred to in the research. Some parents
see it as a normal phase of language development, some find it cogni-
tively or socially inappropriate, and others live in communities where
it has become the norm.
Scholars in general don’t seem nearly as worried about the subject
as young parents are. As Professor Grosjean reminds us, bilingual
children will be creative and play with their languages the same way
monolingual children do as they develop their language skills. (6)
They’re learning to express themselves, and they just happen to have
more resources at their disposal.
To evaluate why a child mixes her languages, you have to exam-
ine the whole picture. There are many variables to consider, includ-
ing the child’s learning style, her age, her personality, her aptitude for
languages, how much you mix languages at home, and how you cor-
rect her when she uses the “wrong” word. To better understand the
situation, here is a list of reasons that children sometimes mix their
languages, either in the same sentence or in the same conversation.

Common Reasons for Code-Switching

• Hasn’t learned the corresponding vocabulary word yet
• The word has just been used and is easier to remember
• Uses the word in one language more often
• Personal preference
• Wants to get your attention
• The word has specific cultural meaning in one language and
not in the other
• Wants to express her bilingual identity

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 Raising Kids in Two (or more!) Languages

• Aware that the person she’s speaking with is bilingual

• Relates an emotion that is linked to a particular language
• Wants to exclude someone from the conversation
• Chooses the shortest word out of pure laziness (my case as a
teenager!)

CORRECTING

When children are still at home and just learning to identify their two
language systems, mixing languages is usually temporary. I think every
parent has to decide what feels most natural in their daily interac-
tions, but it’s clear that if we correct a young child every time she says
a word in the “wrong” language, we risk taking the spontaneity out of
learning and giving her a serious complex. If Sofiya shows me, with
great excitement, her new Play-Doh creation and says, “Regarde,
Maman, octopus!” (“Look, Mom, octopus!”) I simply reply, “Bravo!
Quelle belle pieuvre!” (“What a beautiful octopus!”) I give her the
French word in my reply, but I don’t correct her. I can tell she likes to
say the word octopus. But later, when I ask her to show me “la pieuvre”
in a French book, she points at it without hesitation. The objective is
to make sure the word is not missing from her vocabulary, or, if it is,
to find a fun way to teach it to her.

WHO SPEAKS WHAT?

Mixing languages often happens when young children are still figur-
ing out who’s bilingual and who’s not. When Natasha and Sofiya were
just learning to speak, they assumed that both sets of grandparents
could read French books with them. That assumption was usually
followed with a puzzled look and a head tilt that said, “What do you
mean you can’t read this baby book, Nanny?” When children develop
a solid understanding of their two language systems—which can hap-
pen as early as age two or three—they start to develop a keen sense of

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 Bilingual By Choice

who is bilingual and who isn’t, and most of the time they will use the
appropriate language in their interactions. Madalena Cruz-Ferreira,
author of Three Is A Crowd? Acquiring Portuguese in a Trilingual Envi-
ronment, has seen this in her research and with her own trilingual
children. She shares this insight: “The bottom line is that [a child] will
sort out both languages and their users in time. I’ll give you a preview:
the next stage will be that once she associates a language with a per-
son, say, when meeting new people, she will vigorously refuse to use
any other language with that person.” (7)

HOW TO HELP

Although most researchers agree that mixing languages is a normal

and temporary stage of language development, there are a few help-
ful tips for parents who are still concerned. They can
• refrain from mixing languages themselves in front of the
children
• give their children more daily opportunities to expand their
vocabulary by reading age-appropriate books together
• engage the children in more varied activities and conversations
in both their languages (consider the list in Chapters 9 and 10)
• make sure that the children hear and speak with relatives and
people in the community who speak only one language
• correct them by repeating the word in the appropriate language
With some work and perseverance on the parents’ part, children can
establish distinct language boundaries at home and achieve language
consistency at school.

Learning to Read
A common question for parents raising toddlers with two languages
is: Which language should our children learn to read first? Research

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 Raising Kids in Two (or more!) Languages

shows that it is best for children to learn to read in their stronger lan-
guage, whether it’s the language spoken at home or the community
language. If children learn to read in English first, that doesn’t mean
that parents shouldn’t be reading to them in their native language as
well. As York University Professor of Psychology Ellen Bialystok
explains, “There’s a lot of worry out there about other languages con-
flicting with a child’s ability to learn to read in English, but that’s
absolutely not the case. Parents should not hesitate to share their
native language with their children—it’s a gift.” (8)
Sometimes unexpected circumstances determine which language
our children will read in first. When I was three years old, my family
moved to Jeffersonville, Indiana, for one year. My two sisters, at four
and five years old, started school and were suddenly learning to speak
and read in English, a language they had never heard before. My mom
was concerned about my oldest sister Brigitte’s literacy development
in French, since she would be starting first grade upon our return to
France the following school year. She attempted to read to Brigitte in
French in the evenings, but after several tries she dropped the project
because Brigitte was not responding well. My mom decided to try
again when Brigitte’s kindergarten year in English was over.
Because of this unexpected one-year relocation, my sister did
learn to read in her weaker language. But after she learned to read in
English, she was able to transfer those skills to French. My parents
spent the summer helping Brigitte to read in French. By the time she
started school in France that September, Brigitte read on par with her
classmates. Unknowingly, my parents followed the advice researchers
give out today. They didn’t push Brigitte; they paid attention to her
own particular needs and let her lead the way; they stayed flexible and
held back their expectations; and, most importantly, they committed
to reading every day to put her back on track once she was able to
focus on French again.
According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, “Pushing your
child to read before she is ready can get in the way of your child’s

27
 Bilingual By Choice

interest in learning. This love of learning cannot be forced.” (9) Most

children will learn to read by age six or seven. Some children will learn
at four or five. A child has to be able to recognize the letters or sym-
bols, their appropriate sounds, and how to put them together to form
words in order to start reading. As parents, we can set the stage for this
language milestone in a fun and stress-free way:
• We can read baby books in both languages to our children long
before they can read.
• We can make family trips to the library. More and more
libraries offer books in different languages, as well as picture
books of all the countries around the world.
• We can expose our children to books we read when we were
young.
• We can put books by their beds.
• We can offer them books as presents.
• We can ask lovely relatives to mail us any new discoveries from
overseas!
• We can serve as role models by reading books, magazines, and
newspapers in their presence.
• We can support our local libraries. (One easy contribution is to
donate books in your native language after your children have
outgrown them.)
University of Maryland Professor John Guthrie’s extensive
research on reading shows that motivating children to read can have
life-altering consequences. According to Guthrie’s studies, school-age
children from low-income families who had little education but who
had access to books and were avid readers consistently outperformed
students from higher-income families with higher education who
were not enthusiastic readers. Professor Guthrie firmly believes that
“engaged readers can overcome traditional barriers to reading achieve-
ment, including gender, parental education, and income.” (10)

28
 Raising Kids in Two (or more!) Languages

Most researchers encourage each parent to read in his or her

native language for the same reasons they encourage the One Parent
One Language method. It’s more effective for parents to read in their
stronger language, and it provides consistency for the child. Reading
gives children a chance to learn new words we don’t use in our every-
day conversations, and it’s a critical tool for building academic vocab-
ulary. As Una Cunningham-Andersson writes in Growing Up with
Two Languages, “No amount of visiting the country where the language
is spoken or contact with other speakers can hope to give a child as
rich a vocabulary and such a mastery of the nuances of the language
as a thorough immersion in its children’s literature.” (11)
Another valuable reason for reading in our native language is the
colorful cultural vignettes in well-chosen books that teach our chil-
dren about where their family comes from. Of course, some books can
be read in any language, such as my personal favorite, Le Petit Prince,
by Antoine St. Exupery. But many other stories need to be read in the
original text to capture all the cultural nuances. It would be fascinat-
ing to do a comparative study of international children’s books to
examine all the cultural variations. Sometimes, if you’re missing the
cultural context, it’s difficult to find the story’s meaning. For example,
we have a children’s book from Cambodia that left me puzzled; it
involves two young men, a rabbit, a series of threats, and a very big
machete! From my perspective it’s not cozy bedtime reading, so for
now it stays out of reach on the top shelf.

Keep Talking From Day One

One of the most influential factors in our children’s bilingual devel-
opment is how much language they hear every day. Research shows
that, on average, we use 16,000 words per day. (12) That means we
have the chance to expose our children to an incredible vocabulary,
thereby increasing their chances of success in reading and future aca-
demic achievements.

29
 Bilingual By Choice

Dr. Betty Hart and Dr. Todd Risley conducted a well-known

research study that examined the number of words heard and
exchanged between parents and children in forty-two families during
a two-and-a-half year period. The participants were from high, mid-
dle, and low socio-economic groups. The authors recorded long hours
of verbal exchanges between parents and children and found that, on
average, the child participants with high-income parents heard eleven
million words per year, and the participants with low-income parents
heard only three million words per year. (13) According to Dr. Hart
and Dr. Risley, this discrepancy in how many words infants and tod-
dlers hear from their parents day after day is a crucial factor in under-
standing why some students do better in school than others.
To provide an enriched language environment for our children,
we need to talk! As parents, we need to narrate every single thing we
do around the house. Try it. It will feel very natural to some parents;
others might find these monologues awkward at first. But remember
that, according to the research, the number of words a child hears
throughout the day is directly linked to the child’s intelligence and
vocabulary size. Language is a free resource we all have at our disposal,
regardless of our educational or socioeconomic background. The
impact is so strong that it makes you want to chat away with your baby
as you empty the dishwasher, fold the towels, mop the floor, or put the
groceries away. As Dr. Risley explains, the common vocabulary we use
at home lays the foundation for the more sophisticated concepts our
children will learn later on. Talking to our children and reading to
them every day will teach them new vocabulary words, stimulate their
creativity, and increase their knowledge. And there’s no need to hire
an expensive language tutor!
It’s also important for children to hear and absorb the richness of
a dialogue in our native language. Those of you with fun and lively rel-
atives who are always ready to talk your ear off: you’re in luck! If, like
me, you don’t have any family living near you to engage in animated
conversations, the next best thing is the handy online telephone serv-

30
 Raising Kids in Two (or more!) Languages

ice used with a webcam. Skype (www.skype.com), for example, has

become a great resource for many families scattered around the globe.
It’s one of those technological advances that makes you wonder how
you ever survived without it! It has replaced the telephone at our
house. Not only is it a great way to provide more language input for
children, but it also helps them develop a closer contact with faraway
relatives. They can share everyday moments instead of just hearing the
big headlines over the telephone. When we use Skype, I feel that I’m
not alone in this quest to raise my girls to speak French; the rest of my
family can also help me succeed.

Strategies in Public
What about our conversations in public? At some point we all have to
figure out what feels most natural. Some parents simply choose to
speak their native language at all times, regardless of how their chil-
dren or other people around them react. It sends a strong message of
language pride to the children. Even if the community is not receptive,
parents are expressing their personal enthusiasm for the language and
its importance in the context of their family. In cities like New York,
Miami, and Chicago, bilingual families might not question whether to
use their native language in the company of others, mostly because of
the large mix of ethnic and linguistic groups who have made a home
there. In smaller towns, however, it is still uncommon to hear a for-
eign language spoken on the streets. In New Hampshire, where I live,
English clearly dominates. I have to say, though, now that I pay more
attention to the issue, I’m amazed at how often I meet someone in a
store, or at an amusement park, or restaurant who speaks another
language fluently with his or her family. When I was pregnant, I sud-
denly saw babies and strollers everywhere I went; now that I speak a
foreign language out in public, I suddenly hear other languages every-
where I go!

31
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step and dared the Union messengers to go an inch farther.
Midshipman Read stepped smilingly ahead of his captain and gently
pushed with either hand two of the cursing young desperadoes far
enough to one side to allow for a passageway between them. Both
of them actually placed the muzzles of their cocked revolvers against
his neck as a last threat, but even the touch of cold steel did not
drive away Read's amused smile. The mob gave up. Evidently these
men had resources about which they knew nothing.

"They were so sure that we wouldn't kill them that we couldn't," said
one of the Thugs afterward in explaining why the hated messengers
had been allowed to march up the steps.

They sauntered into the mayor's room where they met a group of
white-faced, trembling men who were the mayor and his council.
Captain Bailey delivered the admiral's summons for the surrender of
the city to the mayor. The mob, which at first had stayed back, at
this point surged up to the windows and shouted curses and threats
into the very mayor's room, threatening him and the council if they
dared to surrender the city. Captain Bailey and his companion gave
the trembling city officials a few minutes in which to make up their
minds. Suddenly there was heard a roar outside louder than any
which had come before. The mob had torn down the Union flag
which had been hoisted over the custom house and rushing to the
mayor's office, tore it to pieces outside the open windows and threw
the fragments in at the seated envoys. This insult to their flag
aroused Captain Bailey and young Read as no threats against them
personally had been able to do. Turning to the mayor and the
shrinking council, Bailey said, "As there is a God in heaven, the man
who tore down that Union flag shall hang for it." Later on this
promise was carried out by the inflexible General Butler when he
took over the city from Admiral Farragut and hanged Mumford, the
man who tore down the flag in the city square, before the very mob
which had so violently applauded his action. This incident was the
last straw for the mayor and his associates. They neither dared to
refuse to surrender the city lest it should be bombarded by Farragut
nor did they dare to surrender it for fear of the mob which had
gathered around them with significant coils of rope over their arms.
In a half-whisper they hurriedly notified Captain Bailey that they
could not surrender the city, but that they would make no resistance
if the Union forces occupied it. Looking at them contemptuously,
Captain Bailey turned away, picked up the fragments of the torn flag
and faced the mob outside threateningly. The man who had torn the
flag slunk back and his example was contagious. One by one men
commenced to sneak away and in a minute the City Hall was
deserted and Captain Bailey and Midshipman Read were able to
leave the building and drive back to the vessels in a carriage
obtained for them by the mayor's secretary.

So ended what one of the mob, who afterward became a valued

citizen of his state, described as the bravest deed he had ever seen
—two unarmed men facing and defeating a mob of murderers and
madmen.
 CHAPTER IV
BOY HEROES

One doesn't have to be big, or old, or strong to be brave. But one

does have to believe in something so much and so hard that nothing
else counts, even death. An idea that is so big that everything else
seems small is called an ideal. It is easy for a boy with an ideal to be
brave. Cassabianca, the boy who stayed on the burning ship
because he had been ordered to wait there by his dead father, had
made obedience his ideal. The boy of Holland who found a leak in
the dyke which could only be stopped by his hand, and who stayed
through the long night and saved his village but lost his right hand
had learned this great ideal of self-sacrifice. The shepherd boy who
saved his sheep from a lion and a bear and who afterward was the
only one who dared enter the fatal valley and meet the fierce giant-
warrior had as his ideal faith. He believed so strongly that he was
doing God's will that he shared God's strength.

In the great war between slavery and freedom which swept like fire
over the country, boys learned the ideals for which their fathers
fought. They learned to believe so entirely in freedom that there was
no room left for fear. Many of them went to the war as drummer
boys, the only way in which boys could enlist. One of these was
Johnny McLaughlin of the Tenth Indiana. Johnny lived at a place
called Lafayette and was not quite eleven years old. From the
minute that the war broke out he thought of nothing but what he
could do for his country and for freedom. Other boys played at
drilling and marching, but this was not enough for him. He made
inquiries and found that if he could learn to drum, there was a
chance that he might be allowed to enlist. He said nothing at first to
his father and mother about his plans, but saved all his spending-
money and worked every holiday in order to get enough to buy a
drum. Times were hard, however. There was little money for men,
much less for boys, and after Johnny had worked for over two
months, he had saved exactly two dollars. In the village was a
drummer who had been sent home to recover from his wounds and
to him Johnny went one day to ask how much more he would have
to save before he could buy a drum. The man told him that a good
drum would cost him at least ten dollars. Johnny sighed and turned
away very much discouraged.

"Why don't you play something else?" said the man. "You can get
more fun out of ten dollars than buying a drum with it."

"I don't want it to play with," said Johnny. "I want to learn to drum
so that I can enlist."

At first the man laughed at the boy—he seemed so little, but when
he found that Johnny had made up his mind to do his share for his
country in the great fight, Donaldson, as he was named, became
serious.

"I tell you what I'll do," he said at last. "If you are really in earnest
about learning to drum, I'll give you lessons myself, for," said he
modestly, "I was the best drummer in my regiment. If you can learn
and they will take you, I'll give you the old drum. I'll send it to the
front even if I can't go myself."

This was enough for Johnny. Morning, noon and night he was with
his friend Donaldson and it was a wonder that the drum-head was
not worn out long before he learned. Learn he did, however, and in
a few months there was not a roll or a call which he could not play.
One morning as the school-bell was ringing, Johnny presented
himself to his parents with the big drum around his neck looking
nearly as large as he was.

"I'm going to enlist," he said simply.

At first his father and mother, like Donaldson, were inclined to laugh
at him, he was such a little boy, but Johnny was in earnest and a
boy who is in earnest always gets what he wants. A few days later
found him a drummer for the Tenth Indiana and as he led the
regiment, beating the long roll, Johnny was the proudest boy that
had ever come out of Indiana. He had his first taste of fire at Fort
Donelson and afterward at the bloody battle of Shiloh. Johnny
drummed until the terrible drumming of the muskets drowned out
even his loud notes. Then he laid down his sticks, carefully hid his
drum, took a musket and cartridge box from off one of the dead
soldiers and ran on with his regiment and fought in the front with
the bravest of them all. He had a quick eye and it was not long
before he could shoot as accurately as any man there.

It was just after Shiloh that Johnny had a narrow escape from being
captured. Wanting to try everything, he obtained permission to do
picket duty at night although this work was not required of drummer
boys. As he had shown himself such a cool and ready fighter, his
colonel felt that he was entirely able to do this duty and one dark
night put him on picket. His post was some distance away from the
camp. Just at dawn he was suddenly rushed by a party of rebel
cavalry. As they burst out of the bushes Johnny fired his carbine at
the first one, dropping him, and ran across an open field about fifty
yards wide. At the other side was an old, rotten, log fence and
beyond that a mass of briers and underbrush where he was sure the
horses could not follow. Fortunately for him the rains had made the
field a mass of mud. There his lightness gave him the advantage, for
the horses slumped through at every step. The rebels fired
constantly at him as they rode with their pistols. One ball went
through his hat, another clear through his cartridge box and lodged
in his coat, fortunately without exploding any of the cartridges.
Beyond the middle of the field the ground was drier and the
horsemen commenced to gain on him, but he reached the fence well
ahead and with one jump landed on the top. The rotten rails gave
way underneath him and he plunged headlong over into the brush,
right on the back of a big sleeping wild pig who had rooted out a lair
at this place. The pig jumped up grunting and crashed through the
underbrush and Johnny heard his pursuers smashing through the
broken fence not a rod away. He curled up into the round hole which
the pig had left, drew down the bushes over his head and lay
perfectly quiet. The horsemen, hearing the rustling of leaves and the
smashing of branches as the pig dashed off down a pathway,
followed after at full gallop and were out of sight in a minute. As
soon as the sound of their galloping had died away, Johnny crawled
cautiously out of his hole and made the best of his way back to
camp. The next day some of the rebel cavalry were taken prisoners
and Johnny recognized one of them as the leader of the squad
which had so nearly caught him. The prisoner recognized the boy at
the same time and they both grinned cheerfully at each other.

"Did you catch that pig yesterday?" finally said Johnny.

"We did that," retorted the prisoner, "but it wasn't the one we were
after."

Johnny had always been able to ride the most spirited horses on the
farm and after Shiloh he asked to be transferred from the infantry to
Colonel Jacob's Kentucky Cavalry. There he attracted the attention of
the colonel so that the latter gave him one of the best horses in the
regiment and a place in the Fighting First, as the best-mounted
company was called, which the colonel always led personally in
every charge. In this company Johnny was taught how to handle a
sabre. The regular sabre was too heavy for him, but Colonel Jacob
had one light, short one specially made which Johnny learned to
handle like a flash. A German sergeant, who had been a great fencer
on the Continent, taught him all that he knew and before long
Johnny was an expert in tricks of fence which stood him in good
stead later on. One in special he so perfected that it was never
parried. Instead of striking down with the sabre as is generally done,
Johnny learned a whirling, flashing upper-cut which came so rapidly
that generally an opponent could not even see much less parry it.
He was also armed with the regulation revolver and a light carbine
instead of the heavy revolving rifle used by the rest of the troop. At
Perryville he fought his first battle with his new regiment. In the
charge he stuck close to Colonel Jacob and received a ball through
his left leg above the knee. Fortunately it did not break any bone
and Johnny tore a strip off his shirt, bandaged the hole and went on
with the fight. While he was doing this, the greater part of the
regiment passed on and when Johnny started to join his colonel, he
could not find him. He rode like the wind over the field and soon
behind a little patch of woods saw Colonel Jacobs with only six or
seven men, the rest having been scattered in the fight. Johnny
spurred his horse over to him and the colonel was delighted to be
joined by his little body-guard. As they were riding along to rejoin
the rest of the regiment, from out a clump of bushes a squad of fifty
men led by a Confederate major dashed out calling on them to
surrender. Colonel Jacob hesitated, for some of his men were
wounded and the odds seemed too great for a fight. Before he had
time to answer, Johnny slipped in front of him, drew out his revolver
and fired directly into the Confederate officer's face, killing him
instantly and then drawing his sabre dashed into the ranks of the
enemy. The first man he met was a big fellow whose bare, brawny
arm and blood-stained sabre proved him a master with his weapon.
Johnny never gave him a chance to strike. At the whirl of his light
sabre his opponent instinctively raised his weapon in the ordinary
parry of a down-blow and the point of Johnny's sabre caught him
under the chin and toppled him off his horse. The Union men gave a
cheer, followed their little leader, breaking clear through the
demoralized Confederates and joined their command at the other
side of the field.

A few weeks later they had a skirmish with the troop of John
Morgan, the most dreaded cavalry leader and fighter in all the
South. Johnny, as usual, was in the front of the charge and had just
cut at one man when another aimed a tremendous blow at his head
in passing. There was just time for Johnny to raise the pommel of
his sabre to save his head, but the deflected blow caught him on the
leg and he fell from the horse with blood spurting out of his other
leg this time. He lay perfectly quiet, but another rebel had seen him
fall and spurring forward, caught him by the collar, saying:

"We'll keep this little Yankee in a cage to show the children."

Johnny did not approve of this cage-idea and although there was no
room to use the sabre, managed to work his left hand back into his
belt, draw his revolver and shoot his captor dead. In another minute
his company came riding back and he was whirled up behind his
colonel and rode back of him to safety. This last wound proved to be
a serious one and he was sent back to Indiana on a furlough to give
it time to heal. On the way back he was stopped by a provost guard
and asked for his pass.

"My colonel forgot to give me any passes," said Johnny, "but here
are two that the rebels gave me," showing his bandaged legs, and
the guard agreed with him that this was pass enough for any one.
As his wound refused to heal, against his wishes he was discharged
and once more returned home. He then tried to enlist again, but
each time he was turned down because of the unhealed wound.
Finally, Johnny traveled clear to Washington and had a personal talk
with President Lincoln and explained to him that his wound would
never heal except in active service. His arguments had such force
with the President that a special order was made for his enlistment
and he fought through the whole war and afterward joined the
regular army.

The littlest hero of the war was Eddie Lee. Shortly before the battle
of Wilson's Creek, one of the Iowa regiments was ordered to join
General Lyon in his march to the creek. The drummer of one of the
companies was taken sick and had to go to the hospital. The day
before the regiment was to march a negro came to the camp and
told the captain that he knew of a drummer who would like to enlist.
The captain told him to bring the boy in the next morning and if he
could drum well he would give him a chance. The next day during
the beating of the reveille, a woman in deep mourning came in
leading by the hand a little chap about as big as a penny and
apparently not more than five or six years old. She inquired for the
captain and when the latter came out, told him that she had brought
him a drummer boy.

"Drummer boy," said the captain; "why, madam, we don't take them
as small as this. That boy hasn't been out of the cradle many
months."

"He has been out long enough," spoke up the boy, "to play any tune
you want."

His mother then told the captain that she was from East Tennessee
where her husband had been killed by the rebels and all her
property destroyed and she must find a place for the boy.

"Well, well," said the captain, impatiently, "Sergeant, bring the drum
and order our fifer to come forward."

In a few moments the drum was produced and the fifer, a tall, good-
natured fellow over six feet in height, made his appearance.

"Here's your new side-partner, Bill," said the captain.

Bill stooped down, and down and down until his hands rested on his
ankles and peered into the boy's face carefully.

"Why, captain," said he, "he ain't much taller than the drum."

"Little man, can you really drum?" he asked.

"Yes, sir," said the boy. "I used to drum for Captain Hill in Tennessee.
I am nearly ten years old and I want the place."

The fifer straightened himself up slowly, placed his fife at his mouth
and commenced to play "The Flowers of the Forest," one of the
most difficult pieces to follow on the drum. The little chap
accompanied him without a mistake and when he had finished
began a perfect fusillade of rolls and calls and rallies which came so
fast that they sounded like a volley of musketry. When the noise had
finally died out, the captain turned to his mother and said:

"Madam, I'll take that boy. He isn't much bigger than a minute but
he certainly can drum."

The woman kissed the boy and nearly broke down.

"You'll surely bring him back to me, captain," she said.

"Sure," said the captain; "we'll all be discharged in about six weeks."

An hour later Eddie was marching at the head of the Iowa First
playing "The Girl I Left Behind Me" as it had never been played
before. He and Bill, the fifer, became great chums and Eddie was the
favorite of the whole regiment. Whenever anything especially nice
was brought back by the foraging parties, Eddie always had his
share and the captain said that he was in far more danger from
watermelons than he was from bullets. On heavy marches the fifer
would carry him on his back, drum and all, and this was always
Eddie's position in fording the numerous streams.
At the Battle of Wilson's Creek the Iowa regiment and a part of an
Illinois regiment were ordered to clear out a flanking party concealed
in a ravine upon the left of the Union forces. The ravine was a deep,
long one with high trees and heavy underbrush and dark even at
noontime. The Union regiments marched down and there was a
dreadful hand-to-hand fight in the brush in the semi-twilight. Men
became separated from each other and as in the great battle
between David and Absalom, the wood devoured more people that
day than the sword devoured. The fight was going against the Union
men when suddenly a Union battery wheeled into line on a near-by
hill and poured a rain of grape and canister into the Confederates
which drove them out in short order. Later on the word was passed
through the Union Army that General Lyon had been killed and soon
after came the order to fall back upon Springfield. The Iowa
regiment and two companies of a Missouri regiment were ordered to
camp on the battle-field and act as a rear guard to cover a retreat.
When the men came together that night there was no drummer boy.
In the hurry and rush of hand-to-hand fighting, Eddie had become
separated from Bill and although the latter raged back and forth
through the brush like an angry bull, never a trace of his little
comrade could he find. That night the sentries stood guard over the
abandoned field and along the edge of the dark ravine now filled
with the dead of both sides. It was a wild, desolate country and as
the men passed back and forth over the stricken field, they could
hear the long, mournful, wailing howl of the wolves which were
brought by the smell of blood from the wilderness to the battle-field
from miles around. That night poor Bill was unable to sleep and
moaned and tossed on his blanket and said for the thousandth time:

"If only I had kept closer to the little chap."

Suddenly he sprang to his feet and roused the sleeping men all
around him.

"Don't you hear a drum?" said he.

They all listened sadly, but could hear nothing.

"Lie down, Bill," said one of them. "Eddie's gone. We all did the best
we could."

"He's down there in the dark," cried poor Bill, "drumming for help,
and I must go to him."

The others tried to hold him back for it was impossible to see a foot
through the tangled ravine at night and moreover the orders were
strict against any one leaving camp. Bill went to the sentry who
guarded the captain's tent and finally persuaded the man to wake up
the captain. The latter lay exhausted with fatigue and sorrow, but
came out and listened as did all the rest for the drum, but nothing
could be heard.

"You imagined it, my poor fellow," he said. "There's nothing you

could do to-night anyway. Wait until morning."

Bill paced restlessly up and down all through that dark night and just
as the dawn-light came in the sky, he heard again faint and far away
a drum beating the morning call from out of the silence of the deep
ravine. Again he went to the captain.

"Of course you can go," said the latter, kindly, "but you must be back
as soon as possible for we march at daybreak. Look out for yourself
as the place is full of bushwhackers and rebel scouts."

Bill started down the hill through the thick underbrush and wandered
around for a time trying to locate the drum-beats which were thrown
back by the trees so that it was difficult to determine from what
point they came. As he crept along through the underbrush, they
sounded louder and louder and finally in the darkest, deepest part of
the ravine, he came out from behind a great pin-oak and saw his
little comrade sitting on the ground leaning against the trunk of a
fallen tree and beating his drum which was hung on a bush in front
of him.

"Eddie, Eddie, dear old Eddie," shouted Bill, bursting through the
thicket. At the sound the little chap dropped his drumsticks and
exclaimed:

"Oh, Bill, I am so glad to see you. I knew you would come. Do get
me a drink."

Bill started to take his canteen down to a little near-by brook when
Eddie called him back.

"You'll come back, Bill, won't you," he said, "for I can't walk."

Bill looked down and saw that both of his feet had been shot away
by a cannon-ball and that the little fellow was sitting in a pool of his
own blood. Choking back his sobs, the big fifer crawled down to the
brook and soon came back with his canteen full of cold water which
Eddie emptied again and again.

"You don't think I am going to die, do you, Bill?" said the little boy at
last. "I do so want to finish out my time and go back to mother. This
man said I would not and that the surgeon would be able to cure
me."

For the first time Bill noticed that just at Eddie's feet lay a dead
Confederate. He had been shot through the stomach and had fallen
near where Eddie lay. Realizing that he could not live and seeing the
condition of the boy, he had crawled up to him and taking off his
buckskin suspenders had bandaged with them the little fellow's legs
so that he would not bleed to death and on tying the last knot had
fallen back dead himself. Eddie had just finished telling Bill all about
it in a whisper, for his strength was going fast, when there was a
trampling of horses through the ravine and in a minute a
Confederate scouting party broke through the brush, calling upon Bill
to surrender.

"I'll do anything you want," said Bill, "if you will only take my little
pal here safe back to camp and get him into the hands of a
surgeon."

The Confederate captain stooped down and spoke gently to the boy
and in a minute took him up and mounted him in front of him on his
own horse and they rode carefully back to the Confederate camp,
but when they reached the tents of the nearest Confederate
company they found that little Eddie had served out his time and
had given his life for his country.

On June 30, 1862, was fought the stubborn battle of Glendale, one
of the Seven Days' Battles between McClellan, the general of the
Union forces, and Lee, the Confederate commander. This battle was
part of McClellan's campaign against Richmond, the capital of the
Confederacy which he had within his grasp when he was out-
generaled by Lee, who that month for the first time had been placed
in supreme command of the Confederate Army. With him were his
two great generals, Stonewall Jackson and Longstreet. McClellan
was within sight of the promised land. The spires of Richmond
showed against the sky. Instead of fighting he hesitated and
procrastinated away every chance of victory. Lee was even then
planning that wonderful strategy which was to halt a victorious army,
turn it away from the beleaguered capital of the Confederacy and
send it stumbling back North in a series of defeats. It was necessary
for him to have a conference with Stonewall Jackson, his great
fighting right-hand in military matters. Jackson rode almost alone
fifty miles and attended a conference with Lee, Longstreet and
Generals D. H. and A. P. Hill. To each of them General Lee assigned
the part that he was to play. In the meantime, knowing that
McClellan always read and pondered the Richmond papers, he
arranged that simultaneously every paper should publish as news
the pretended facts that strong reinforcements had been sent to the
Shenandoah Valley. McClellan fell into the trap and instead of
pressing forward to attack Richmond, which was now only guarded
by a small force, he, as usual, waited for reinforcements and allowed
his antagonists to march around him and start flanking battles which
threatened to cut off his line of communications. The battle of
Gaines Mill was fought in which battle General Fitz John Porter with
thirty-one thousand men stubbornly faced Lee and Jackson's forces
of fifty-five thousand and with sullen obstinacy only retreated when
it was absolutely impossible longer to hold his ground. This defeat,
which occurred simply because McClellan could not bring himself to
send Porter the necessary reinforcements, made General McClellan
resolve to withdraw, although even then, with a superior army, he
could have fought his way to Richmond. From June 25th to July 1,
1862, occurred the Seven Days' Battles fought by the retreating
Union Army. By one of the few mistakes which General Lee made in
that campaign, the Union Army was allowed a respite of twenty-four
hours to organize its retreat and were well on their way before
pursuit was given. On June 29th there was a battle between the rear
guard of the Union force and the Confederate's under General
Magruder in which the Confederates were defeated. The next day
came the battle of Glendale. Generals Longstreet and A. P. Hill
commanded the Confederate Army while the rear guard of the
retreating Union forces was made up of General McCall's division and
that of General Heintzelman and a part of the corps under General
Sumner which had done such gallant fighting the day before. It was
a stern and stubborn battle. If the Confederates could cut through
the rear guard, they would have the retreating army at their mercy.
On the other hand, if they could be held back, the main army would
have time to occupy a favorable position and entrench and could be
saved. For a time it seemed as if the Confederate attack could not
be checked. Every available man was called into action. Back at the
rear were posted the hospital corps where the sick and wounded lay.
With them were stationed the band and the drum-corps made up of
drummer boys who were supposed to keep out of actual fighting as
much as possible. Among them was a little Jewish boy named
Benjamin Levy, who was only sixteen years old and small for his age.
Benjamin stayed back with the hospital while the roar of the battle
grew louder and louder. Finally there was a tremendous chorus of
yells and groans and shouts mingled with the rattle of rifle-shots and
the heavy thudding sounds which sabres and bayonets make as they
slash and pierce living flesh. Little groups of wounded men came
straggling back or were carried back to the hospital and each one
told a fresh story of the fierce fight which was going on at the near-
by front. Benjamin could stand it no longer. The last wounded man
that came in hobbled along with a broken leg, using his rifle for a
crutch. The boy helped him to a near-by cot and made him as
comfortable as he could.

"Now you lie quiet," he said, "until the doctor comes and I'll just
borrow this rifle of yours and do a little fighting in your place," and
Benjamin picked up the gun and slipped on the other's cartridge
belt.

"Hi there, you come back with my gun," yelled the wounded man
after him. "That front's no place for kids like you."

Benjamin, however, was well on his way before the man had finished
speaking and slipping past an indignant doctor who was trying to
stop him, he ran forward, keeping as much as possible in the shelter
of the trees among which the bullets and grape-shot were whining
and humming. He passed many wounded limping to the rear and
rows of prostrate men, some still, some writhing in the agony of
their wounds. These were the men who had fallen on their way back
to the hospital. A minute later Benjamin found himself in the thick of
the fight. There had been a Confederate charge which the Union
soldiers had just barely been able to drive back. The men were still
panting and shouting and firing volleys at the gray forces who were
reluctantly withdrawing to rally for another attack. The boy lay down
with the rest and loaded and fired his borrowed rifle as rapidly as he
could. No one seemed to notice him except the color-bearer who
happened to be the man next to him. He had stopped firing to wipe
his face and saw the little fellow close by his arm.

"Why don't you get back to the rear where you belong?" he said,
pretending to talk very fiercely. "This is no place for little boys. When
those gray-backs come back, you'll scamper quick enough, so you
had better be on your way now."

"No I won't," said Benjamin positively. "I guess boys have got as
much right to fight in this war as men have. Anyway, you won't see
me do much running."

Benjamin was mistaken in that last statement, for a minute later the
colonel of this particular regiment decided that instead of waiting for
a Confederate attack, he would do a little charging on his own
account. The signal came. The men sprang over the earthworks and
Benjamin found himself running neck and neck with the color-bearer
at the head of them all. It was a glorious charge. The ground ahead
was smooth, the fierce flag of the regiment streamed just in front
and all around were men panting and cheering as they ran. It was
almost like a race on the old school-green at home. They came
nearer and nearer to the masses of gray-clothed men who were
hurriedly arranging themselves in regular ranks out of the hurry and
confusion of their retreat. When they were only a short hundred
yards distant, suddenly a wavering line of fire and smoke ran all up
and down the straggling line in front of them. Men plunged headlong
here and there and Benjamin noticed that he and the color-bearer
seemed to have drawn away from the rest and were racing almost
alone. Suddenly his friend with the colors stopped in full stride,
swung the flag over his head once with a shout and dropped
backward with a bullet through his heart. As he fell the colors slowly
dropped down through the air and were about to settle on the
blood-stained grass when the boy, hardly knowing what he did,
shifted his rifle to his left hand, caught the staff of the flag and once
more the colors of the regiment were leading the men on. Right up
to the gray line he carried them, followed by the whole regiment.
Firing, cutting and stabbing with their bayonets they broke straight
through the Confederates and after a hand-to-hand fight, drove
them out of their position. They carried the boy, still clinging to the
colors, on their shoulders to their colonel and to the end of his life
Benjamin remembered the moment when the colonel shook hands
with him before the cheering regiment as the climax of the greatest
day of his life.
 CHAPTER V
THE CHARGE OF ZAGONYI

In battle the charge is the climax. In other kinds of fighting men

have a certain amount of shelter and respite and at long range it
makes little difference whether the fighter is strong or weak. In a
charge, however, the fighting is hand to hand. As in the days of old,
men fight at close grips with their enemy and each one must depend
upon his own strength and skill and bravery.

There have been three charges in modern battles which have been
celebrated over and over again. The first of these was the last
desperate charge of the Old Guard at Waterloo. A thin red line of
English held a hill which Napoleon, the greatest of modern generals,
saw was the keystone of the battle. If that could be taken, the whole
arch of the English and Belgium forces would crumble away into
defeat. Again and again the French stormed at this hill and each
time were driven back by the coolly-waiting deadly ranks of the
English. Toward nightfall Napoleon made one last desperate effort.
The Old Guard was to him what the great Tenth Legion had been to
Julius Cæsar, the best and bravest veterans of his army who boasted
that they had never yet been defeated. Calling them up with every
last one of his reserves, he ordered a final desperate charge to break
the battle center. To the grim drumming of what guns the little
general had left, they rushed again up that blood-stained slope in
desperate dark masses of unbeaten men. With a storm of cheers,
the columns surged up in a vast blue battle-wave which seemed as if
it must dash off by its weight the little group of silent, grim
defenders. The Englishmen waited and waited and waited until the
rushing ranks were almost on them. Then they poured in a volley at
such close range that every bullet did the work of two and with a
deep English cheer sprang on the broken ranks with their favorite
weapon, the bayonet. That great battle-wave broke in a foam of
shattered, dying and defeated men and the sunset of that day was
the sunset of Napoleon's glory.

Fifty years later in the great war which England with her allies was
waging to keep the vast, fierce hordes of Russia from ruling Europe,
happened another glorious, useless charge. Owing to a
misunderstanding of orders, a little squad of six hundred cavalrymen
charged down a mile-long valley flanked on all sides by Russian
artillery against a battery of guns whose fire faced them all the way.
Every schoolboy who has ever spoken a piece on Friday afternoon
knows what comes next. How the gallant Six Hundred, stormed at
with shot and shell, made the charge to the wonder and admiration
of three watching armies and how they forced their way into the
jaws of death and into the mouth of hell and sabred the gunners
and then rode back—all that was left of them.

In our own Civil War occurred the most famous charge of modern
days, Pickett's charge at the battle of Gettysburg. For three days
raged the first battle which the Confederates had been able to fight
on Northern soil. If their great General Lee, with his seventy
thousand veterans, won this battle, Washington, Philadelphia and
even New York were at his mercy. On the afternoon of the third day
he made one last desperate effort to break the center of the Union
forces. Pickett's division of the Virginia infantry was the center of the
attacking forces and the column numbered altogether over fifteen
thousand men. For two hours Lee cannonaded the Union center with
one hundred and fifteen guns. He was answered by the Union
artillery although they could only muster eighty guns. Finally the
Union fire was stopped in order that the guns might cool for Hunt,
the Union chief of artillery, realized that the cannonade was started
to mask some last great attack. Suddenly three lines, each over a
mile long, of Virginia, North Carolina, Alabama, Georgia and
Tennessee regiments started to cover the mile and a half which
separated them from the Union center. The Union crest was held by
the Pennsylvania regiments who were posted back of the stone wall
on the very summit. As the gray lines rushed over the distance with
a score of fierce battle flags flaming and fluttering over their ranks,
the eighty guns which had cooled so that they could now be used
with good effect opened up on them first with solid shot and then
with the tremendous explosive shells. As they charged, the Virginia
regiments moved away to the left leaving a gap between them and
the men from Alabama on the right. The Union leaders took
advantage of this gap and forced in there the Vermont brigade and a
half brigade of New York men. By suddenly changing front these
men were enabled to attack the charging thousands on their flank.
The Union guns did terrible execution, opening up great gaps
through the running, leaping, shouting men. As the charge came
nearer and nearer the batteries changed to the more terrible grape
and canister which cut the men down like grass before a reaper. Still
they came on until they were face to face with the waiting Union
soldiers who poured in a volley at short range. For a moment the
battle flags of the foremost Confederate regiments stood on the
crest. The effort had been too much. Over half of the men had been
killed or wounded and many others had turned to meet the flank
attack of the Vermont and New York regiments so that when the
Pennsylvania troops met them at last with the bayonet, the gray line
wavered, broke, and the North was saved.

All three of these great charges were brave, glorious failures. This is
the story of a charge, an almost forgotten charge, just as brave, just
as glorious, which succeeded, a charge in which one hundred and
sixty men and boys broke and routed a force of over two thousand
entrenched infantry and cavalry.
At the breaking out of the war, one of the most popular of the Union
commanders was John C. Fremont, the Pathfinder. He had opened
up the far West and had made known to the people the true
greatness of the country beyond the Mississippi. At the birth of the
Republican or Free-Soil Party, he was the first candidate. The
country rang with a campaign song sung to the tune of the
Marseillaise, the chorus of which was:

"March on, march on, ye braves,

And let your war cry be,
Free soil, free press, free votes, free men,
Fremont and victory."

He was one of the first generals appointed. Among those whom the
fascination of his romantic and adventurous life had attracted to his
side was a Hungarian refugee named Zagonyi. In his boyhood he
had fought in the desperate but unsuccessful war which Hungary
made to free herself from the Austrian yoke. He served in the
Hungarian cavalry; and in a desperate charge upon the Austrians, in
which half the force were killed, Zagonyi was wounded and captured
and for two years was a prisoner. He was finally released on
condition that he leave his country forever. As an experienced
soldier, he was welcomed by General Fremont and was authorized to
raise a company to be known as Fremont's Body-Guard. In a few
days two full companies, composed mostly of very young men, had
been enrolled. A little later another company composed entirely of
Kentucky boys was included in the guards. They were all
magnificently mounted on picked horses and very handsomely
uniformed. Because of their outfit and name they soon excited the
envy of the other parts of the army who used to call them the "kid-
glove brigade." Although well-trained and enthusiastic, they had no
active service until October, 1861, when Zagonyi, who had been
appointed their major, was ordered to take one hundred and sixty of
his men and explore the country around Springfield, Missouri,
through which the main army was intending to advance. There were
rumors that a Confederate force was approaching to take possession
of the city of Springfield and the body-guard marched seventeen
hours without stopping in order to occupy this town before the
enemy should arrive. As they came within two miles of Springfield,
however, they were met by a farmer who informed them that the
Confederates had beaten them in the race to Springfield and were
already in camp on a hill about half a mile west of the town. Their
rear was protected by a grove of trees and there was a deep brook
at the foot of the hill. The only way to approach them was through a
blind lane which ran into fences and ploughed fields. This was
covered by sharpshooters and infantry while four hundred
Confederate horsemen were posted on the flank of the main body of
infantry which guarded the top of the hill. Altogether the force
numbered over two thousand men. It seemed an absolutely
hopeless undertaking for a little body of tired boys to attack twenty
times their own number. Zagonyi, however, had been used to
fighting against odds in his battles with the Austrians. He hurriedly
called his men together and announced to them that he did not
intend to go back without a fight after riding so far.

"If any of you men," he said, "are too tired or too weak, or too
afraid, go back now before it is too late. There is one thing about it,"
he added grimly, "if there are any of us left when we are through we
won't hear much more about kid gloves."

Not a man stirred to go back. Zagonyi gathered them into open

order and drawing his sabre gave the word to start up the fatal lane.
At first there was no sight or sound of any enemy, but as the horses
broke into a run, there was a volley from the woods and a number
of men swayed in their saddles and sank to the ground. Down the
steep, stony lane they rushed in a solid column in spite of volley
after volley which poured into their ranks. Some leaped, others
crashed through fences and across the ploughed fields and jumped
the brook and finally gained the shelter of the foot of the hill. There
was a constant whistle of bullets and scream of minie balls over their
heads. They stopped for a minute to re-form, for nearly half the
squad was down. Zagonyi detached thirty of his best horsemen and
instructed them to charge up the hill at the Confederate cavalry
which, four hundred strong, were posted along the edge of the
wood, and to hold them engaged so that the rest of the force could
make a front attack on the infantry. The rest of the troop watched
the little band gallop up the hillside and they were fully half-way up
before it dawned upon the Confederates that these thirty men were
really intending to attack a force over ten times their number. As
they swept up the last slope, the Confederate cavalry poured a
volley from their revolvers instead of getting the jump on them by a
down-hill charge.

Lieutenant Mathenyi, another Hungarian and an accomplished

swordsman, led the attack and cut his way through the first line of
the Confederate horsemen, closely followed by the score of men
who had managed to get up the hill. With their sabres flashing over
their heads, they disappeared in the gray cloud of Confederates
which awaited them. At that moment Zagonyi gave the word for the
main charge and his column opened out and rushed up the hill from
all sides like a whirlwind. Even as they breasted the slope they saw
the solid mass of Confederate cavalry open out and scatter in every
direction while a blue wedge of men cut clear through and turned
back to sabre the scattering Confederates. With a tremendous cheer,
Zagonyi and the rest of the band rushed on to the massed infantry.

They had time for only one volley when the young horsemen were
among them, cutting, thrusting, hacking and shooting with their
revolvers. In a minute the main body followed the example of the
cavalry and broke and scattered everywhere. Some of them,
however, were real fighters; they retreated into the woods and kept
up a murderous fire from behind trees. One young Union soldier
dashed in after them to drive them out, but was caught under the
shoulders by a grape-vine and swept off his horse and hung
struggling in the air until rescued by his comrades. Down into the
village swarmed the fugitives with the guards close at their heels. At
a great barn just outside of the village a number of them rallied and
drove back the Kentucky squad which had been pursuing them. This
time Zagonyi himself dashed up, and shouting, "Come on, old
Kentuck, I'm with you," rushed at the group which stood in the
doorway. As he came on, a man sprang out from behind the door
and leveled his rifle at Zagonyi's head. The latter spurred his horse
until he reared, and swinging him around on his hind legs, cut his
opponent clear through the neck and shoulders with such
tremendous force that the blood spurted clear up to the top of the
door.

Another hero of the fight was Sergeant Hunter, the drill-master of

the squad. It had always been an open question with the men as to
whether he or Major Zagonyi was the better swordsman. In this fight
Hunter killed five men with his sabre, one after the other, showing
off fatal tricks of fence against bayonet and sabre as coolly as if
giving a lesson, while several men fell before his revolver. His last
encounter was with a Southern lieutenant who had been flying by,
but suddenly turned and fought desperately. The sergeant had lost
three horses and was now mounted on his fourth, a riderless,
unmanageable horse which he had caught, and was somewhat at a
disadvantage. In spite of this he proceeded to give those of his
squad who were near him a lecture on the fine points of the sabre.

"Always parry in secant," said he, suiting his action to the word,
"because," he went on, slashing his opponent across the thigh, "a
regular fencer like this Confed is liable to leave himself open. It is
easy then to ride on two paces and catch him with a back-hand
sweep," and at the words he dealt his opponent a last fatal blow
across the side of the head which toppled him out of his saddle.

A young Southern officer magnificently mounted refused to follow

the fugitives, but charged alone at the line of the guards. He passed
clear through without being touched, killing one man as he went.
Instantly he wheeled, charged back and again broke through,
leaving another Union cavalryman dead. A third time he cut his way
clear up to Zagonyi's side and suddenly dropping his sabre, placed a
revolver against the major's breast and fired. Zagonyi, however, was
like lightning in his movements. The instant he felt the pressure of
the revolver he swerved so that the bullet passed through his tunic,
and shortening his sabre he ran his opponent through the throat
killing him before he had time to shoot again.

Holding his dripping sabre in his hand, the major shouted an order
to his men to come together in the middle of the town. One of the
first to come back was his bugler, whom Zagonyi had ordered to
sound a signal in the fiercest part of the fight. The bugler had
apparently paid no attention to him, but darted off with Lieutenant
Mathenyi's squad and was seen pursuing the flying horsemen
vigorously. When his men were gathered together, Major Zagonyi
ordered him to step out and said:

"In the middle of the battle you disobeyed my order to sound the
recall. It might have meant the loss of our whole company. You are
not worthy to be a member of this guard and I dismiss you."

The bugler was a little Frenchman and he nearly exploded with

indignation.

"No," he said, "me, you shall not dismiss," and he showed his bugle
to his major with the mouthpiece carried away by a stray bullet.
"The mouth was shoot off," he said. "I could not bugle wiz my bugle
and so I bugle wiz my pistol and sabre."

The major recalled the order of dismissal.

So ended one of the most desperate charges of the Civil War. One
hundred and forty-eight men had defeated twenty-two hundred,
with the loss of fifty-three killed and more than thirty wounded.
 CHAPTER VI
THE LOCOMOTIVE CHASE

Courage does not depend upon success. Sometimes it takes a braver

man to lose than to win. A man may meet defeat and even death in
doing his duty, but if he has not flinched or given up, he has not
failed. A brave deed is never wasted whether men live or die.

In the spring of 1862, James J. Andrews and a little band of

nineteen other men staked their lives and liberty for the freedom of
Tennessee and although they lost, the story of their courage helped
other men to be brave.

At the beginning of the Civil War, the eastern part of Tennessee was
held by the Confederates although the mountaineers were for the
most part Union men. The city of Chattanooga was the key to that
part of the state and was held by the Confederates. A railroad line
into that city ran through Georgia and was occupied by the Southern
army. If that could be destroyed, Chattanooga could be cut off from
reënforcements and captured by the small body of Union troops
which could be risked for that purpose. This road was guarded by
detachments of Confederate troops and extended for two hundred
miles through Confederate territory and it seemed as if it could not
be destroyed by any force less than an army. There was no army
that could be spared.

One April evening a stranger came to the tent of General O. M.

Mitchel, commander of the Union forces in middle Tennessee, and
asked to see the general. The sentry refused to admit him unless he
stated his name and errand.

"Tell the general," said the man quietly, "that James J. Andrews
wants to speak to him on a matter of great importance."

The sentry stared at him for there were few in the army who had
not heard of Andrews, the scout, but fewer still who had ever seen
him. No man had passed through the enemy's lines so many times,
knew the country better or had been sent more often on dangerous
errands. In a minute he was ushered in to where General Mitchel sat
writing in the inner tent. With his deep-set gray eyes and waving
hair brushed back from his broad, smooth forehead, he looked more
like a poet than a fighter. The general noticed, however, that his
eyes never flickered and that although he spoke in a very low voice,
there was something about him that at once commanded attention.
Andrews wasted no time.

"General Mitchel," he said, "if you will let me have twenty-four men,
I will capture a train, burn the bridges on the Georgia railroad and
cut off Chattanooga."

"It can't be done," returned General Mitchel.

"Well, general," answered Andrews slowly, "don't you think it's worth
trying? You know I generally make good on what I set out to do. In
this matter if we lose, we lose only twenty-five men. If we win, we
take Chattanooga and all Tennessee without a battle."

There was a long pause while the general studied the scout.

"You shall have the men," he said finally.

Andrews saluted and left the tent. That night twenty-four men from
three regiments were told that they were to have the first chance to
volunteer for secret and dangerous service. Not a man chosen
refused to serve. The next evening they were told to meet at a great
boulder at sunset about a mile below the camp and wait until joined
by their captain. Each man was furnished with the camp countersign
as well as a special watchword by which they could know each other.
One by one the men gathered at dusk, recognized each other by the
watchword and sat down in the brush back of the boulder to wait.
Just at dark there was a rustling in the underbrush at the other side
of the road and the scout stepped out, joined them and gave the
countersign. Without a word, he moved to the thick bushes at one
corner of the boulder and pushing them aside showed a tiny hidden
path which wound through the brush. Into this he stepped and
beckoned them to follow. The path twisted back and forth among
the great stones and trees and through patches of underbrush and
the men in single file followed Andrews. Finally nearly a mile from
the road, he led them down into a dense thicket in a little ravine.
There the brush had been cut out so as to make a kind of room in
the thicket about ten feet square. When they were all inside, the
scout motioned them to sit down and then circled around through
the underbrush and doubled back on his track so as to make sure
that they had not been followed by any spy. Then he returned and
lighted a small lantern which hung to one of the saplings and for the
first time his men had a good look at their captain. As usual,
Andrews wasted no time.

"Boys," he said simply, "I have chosen you to come with me and
capture a train from an army and then run it two hundred miles
through the enemy's country. We will have to pass every train we
meet and while we are doing this we must tear up a lot of track and
burn down two bridges. There is every chance of being wrecked or
shot and if we are captured, we will be hung for spies. It is a
desperate chance and I picked you fellows out as the best men in
the whole army to take such a chance. If any of you think it is too
dangerous, now is the time to stand up and draw out."

There was a long pause. Each man tried to see what his companions
were thinking of in the dim light.
"Well, captain," at last drawled a long, lank chap with a comical face,
who had the reputation of being the worst daredevil in his regiment,
"I would like to stand up for you've got me kind of scared, but my
foot's asleep and I guess I'll have to go with you."

"That's the way I feel," said the man next to him, as every one
laughed, and the same answer went all around the circle.

In a whisper the scout then outlined his plan. The men were to
change their uniforms and put on the butternut-colored clothes of
the South and to carry no arms except a revolver and bowie-knife.
Then they were to cross the country on foot until they got to
Chattanooga and were then to go back on their tracks by train and
meet at a little town called Marietta in the middle of Georgia. No one
would, of course, suspect men coming out of a Confederate city to
be Union soldiers. If questioned they were to say that they were
Kentuckians on their way to join the Southern army. At Marietta they
were to take rooms at the Marietta Hotel and meet at the scout's
room on the following Saturday morning at two o'clock.

Disguised as a quinine seller, Andrews reached Marietta ahead of the

others. At the time appointed, he sat fully dressed in the silent hotel
waiting for the arrival of his little company and wondering how many
would appear. Just as the town clock struck the hour from the old-
fashioned court house, there came a light tapping at the door and
one by one nineteen of the twenty-four glided in and reported for
duty. All had gone through various adventures and several had only
escaped capture by quick thinking and cool action. One of the
missing ones had been delayed by a wreck and did not reach
Marietta in time, two others were forced to enlist in the Southern
army, and two more reached Marietta but by some mistake did not
join the others. The twenty who were left, however, were the kind of
men whose courage flares highest when things seem most
desperate and they were not at all discouraged by the loss of a fifth
of their force, and they all agreed with Brown, the man whose foot
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offering opportunities for learning, discovery, and personal growth.
That’s why we are dedicated to bringing you a diverse collection of
books, ranging from classic literature and specialized publications to
self-development guides and children's books.

More than just a book-buying platform, we strive to be a bridge

connecting you with timeless cultural and intellectual values. With an
elegant, user-friendly interface and a smart search system, you can
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and fully enjoy the joy of reading.

Join us on a journey of knowledge exploration, passion nurturing, and

personal growth every day!

ebookbell.com