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HELLO!
My name is Paola Bucciol. I was born in Asolo, Italy, and fell in love
with archaeology and traveling at a young age.
After graduating from university, I moved to Chicago, IL, US, where I worked creating museum exhibitions. I fell in love with the "city by the lake", but after 10 years an unexpected opportunity came up to come back to Europe! ​That is how I ended up in Amsterdam, Netherlands, where I currently live with my husband and our two sons, my favourite traveling companions.
An explorer at heart and a storyteller by trade, my adventures in getting to know Amsterdam with my children inspired The ABCs of Amsterdam, my debut book and the first book of the City ABC Books series.
THE STORY BEHIND
In 2018, my husband and I decided to move from Chicago, US to Amsterdam, Netherlands. Our two boys, then 1 and 3, were not aware of what was about to happen, but we didn’t want to exclude them from the big change ahead of us.
We found a way to involve them by reading books about the Netherlands, and we told them that we were moving to the land of windmills, bikes, and tulips.
This easy-to-grasp, yet accurate, description allowed them to understand that we were moving to a place that was very different from where we lived.
When we arrived in the land of windmills, bikes, and tulips, it was easy for us to point out these local icons, and recognizing them made our children feel they already knew a bit about this brand new place.
Seeing how proud and happy my children where about knowing already
a few things about their new city made me realize that giving them the opportunity to learn ahead of time paves the way for a great adventure
that they can help craft!
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The idea of creating first city guides for young readers, with suggestions for things for them to see, do, know, and learn was born!
Amsterdam happens to be a city we got to discover as a family, a quite unique place, and a very friendly one for young children to explore, thus the perfect first City ABC Book.
The next books will take you to other wonderful places, so we hope the City ABC Books will inspire your next trips and become your children's travel companions!