
The full title of this E-Book is: 16 Kinds of Snow or How & Why Bilinguals do it Better by Wiktor Kostrzewski
It’s fun to read an e-book based on a blog, especially as I have actually met the writer in person. You can feel how, like in a blog, Kostrzewski draws examples from ongoing daily life to make his points clear. He uses a wide variety of springboards, from podcasts to romance. Makes me want to shout things out in response “Hey Wiktor – I listen to “This American Life” podcasts too!”
At first it takes some getting used to though. Blog posts are designed not to be particularly long and in the beginning I was repeatedly surprised that a chapter was over, I sort of expected more in a book. In that sense I liked the second part of the book better, which was written for the book and not as a blog post.
Reading the whole book did give me a complete picture, as Kostrzewski details ways to deal with the decision to learn a second language and stick with the plan. It’s helpful information both as a teacher (though he does have teachers of language schools in mind I believe, and not school-teachers in national schools) and as someone who still toys with learning Spanish for her own use one day. Kostrzewski sounds like a real person, that understands you and the juggling act that is life.