Our Big Bitty Story
July 2006 (The Teaching Chronicles)
The universe first brought Lacey and Lulu together when they were both hired as first year teachers at an LAUSD elementary school in Highland Park, California. Lunchtime laughter while rushing to prep lesson materials, early morning chats around the copy machine, and afterschool brainstorming became part of the fabric of their friendship.
June 2008 (roomies!)
Lulu convinced Lacey to join her in Pasadena, California as a roommate. Oh the fun they had that year - always running errands, Vegas adventures, too many dinners at Chipotle to count, and carpooling to work while half asleep. Lacey even clicked the confirm button on Lulu’s laptop beginning her online dating adventure which eventually led Lulu to finding her husband! (You’re welcome, Lulu!)
June 2009 – August 2019 (The lost years)
A change in teaching placement for Lulu and Lacey relocating to a Los Angeles apartment resulted in life moving separately for the duo. During the next ten years, Lulu married, had 2 bitty babes, earned a realtor’s license, and settled in as a stay-at-home mom often creating her own Chinese learning materials at home to support her babes in meaningful language acquisition.
June 2009 – August 2019 (The lost years)
Lacey moved up to the Bay Area for a few years, professionally worked her way up to a Middle School Vice Principal position, got married, returned to Southern California, and eventually had a bitty babe of her own. (And yes, for any of you who may be wondering, Madeline was born in that car while it raced down the freeway enroute to the hospital! Whoops!)
August 2019 (desperate for zzzz’s)
Lacey was in a fog of no sleep, her 5-month old bitty babe was waking up every FORTY-FIVE minutes (ahhhh!) during the night for the past three weeks. In her desperation, she text every mother with small children that she knew begging for the magic moves that would make her small human loop her sleep cycles. Lulu spent an hour coaching Lacey via text and reassuring her that she would one day sleep again (the baby and Lacey). Lacey followed Lulu’s advice and her bitty babe was sleeping through the night within three evenings. From then on, Lulu was officially known as Lacey’s Magic Sleep Fairy – parades should be hosted and statues should be built in her honor. Any new parent would surely agree.
December 2019 (the big bitty beginning)
A random 11pm text from Lulu lit up Lacey’s phone one December evening. It read, “So crazy thought, I want to write children’s bilingual Chinese books. Starting to form ideas and such, a series - like the Spanish series you follow. @lillibros - they’re inspiring! What are your thoughts on this? Too crazy? Totally feasible? Want to be my illustrator? Let’s do crazy together!”
Who sends an 11pm text asking someone out of the blue to make a book series with them? But more importantly, who says yes to such an endeavor under those circumstances? Lulu and Lacey do.
And so began our journey. We look forward to showing you highlights of our labor-of-love book making process, road to publishing, and all the fun we have along the way. (Mostly in the middle of the night after all our bitty babes are in bed and our houses are finally quiet!) We are so proud to announce our book series (in its infancy), #BittyBao - bitty books for bitty babes!
Bitty Bao Authors
As our bitty bookmaking journey grew, we knew we wanted to help lift other stories, points-of-view, authors, and illustrators into the spotlight. We are so excited to announce that Bitty Bao is expanding to picture books and so proud to introduce to our community new voices! So many exciting titles and projects are ahead! Stay tuned!
Lacey Benard - Bitty Bao Co-Founder
Co-Author of the Bitty Bao Board Book Series
Ling Lee - Author
Lulu Cheng - Bitty Bao Co-Founder
Co-Author of the Bitty Bao Board Book Series
Eric Lee - Author