This Mom Of 2 Gets Inspiration From Her Son, Daughter In Publishing Books For Children

Alexandra Romualdez Broekman, the founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Kado Publishing Inc., has always wanted to make books.

"Writing and illustrating has been a lifelong dream," she tells  SmartParenting.com.ph in an email interview. "When I was a kid, I'd staple books together and write and then share my stories with everyone. When I finally had access to a computer, my best friend and I would trade diskettes at school - writing and sharing chapters of books together. So, this was always high on my bucket list."

But instead of "going through traditional channels," Alexandra, who previously worked at tech giant Google and coding bootcamp Hacktiv8, opted to venture into book publishing.

"Due to my children," Alexandra points out. She and her Indonesian-Dutch husband Jay Broekman have a 6-year-old son, Lucas, and a 4-year-old daughter, Leia. They are all currently based in The Netherlands.

"We are avid picture book readers at home. My kids will ask me to read 4 to 8 books to them before bed, and they often get lost in books themselves."

Alexandra then shares this general observation: "My kids (who are mixed ethnicities) were rarely represented in our books. I did an audit of childrens books in the best bookstore available to us in Indonesia (where we were living as expats from 2016 to 2021), and around 60% of them were from America, and 80% of the stars in these books were white and blonde and blue eyed."

And this personal realization: "I felt the lack of diversity was staggering. I wanted my kids to feel represented as well. As a child, I loved Sweet Valley Kids and always wondered when I'd be able get blonde hair and blue eyes. Obviously the answer to that was never haha. I didn't want that for my kids. I wanted them to see themselves as heroes in the stories they loved too."

She adds, "In line with the diversity issue, I kept seeing that Asian stories are so overlooked and underrated. You don't see a lot of Filipino heroes featured, or even Filipino artists. Asia is the biggest, most populated continent in the world, and my kids are 75% Asian.

"I wanted them to know that heritage too. There are some great publishers in the Philippines doing wonderful things for kid lit, and I wanted to be a part of that. To tell my kids' stories and share the stories I was missing when I was growing up."

Alexandra achieves her goal through Kado Publishing Inc., whose latest project is Fantastic Filipinas. It's a five-book series "about women who changed the course of Philippine history through their bravery, heroism, ingenuity, creativity, and grit.

These five fantastic Filipinas are inventor Maria Orosa, journalist Pura Villanueva-Kalaw, freedom fighter Gabriela Silang, pediatrician Dr. Fe Del Mundo, and Girl Scouts of the Philippines founder Josefa Llanes-Escoda.

Alexandra illustrated the books on Llanes-Escoda and Orosa, the latter with the help of her children Lucas and Leia, along with Tina Romualdez. The rest of the creative team are writers Sab Schnabel and Ceej Tantengco, as well as illustrators Georgina Camus, Dani Go, and Lea Calanoc.

To help raise an early reader, Alexandra has this tip: "Read a lot to your kids. There's a book and podcast about how important reading aloud is (it's called The Read Aloud Family). Read that if you need help finding motivation and tactics."

She points out, too, "For us my husband and I LOVE to read. And in our down time that's what we do. Curl up on the couch and read after a long day of work or sports or adventure. Kids do what you do, so they pick up on that. And kids treasure time spent with you so readalouds together build positive associations. So just do that. Do that a lot. Always. Everyday. As much as you can."

To pre-order your copy of Fantastic Filipinas, visit here. It will be available at Kado's other stores and other places online after its launch on March 8, 2022.