If you’re looking for a holiday gift for your favorite Third Culture Kid (TCK), one idea would be to check out Anna Pederson’s “Gracie and the Zebra Herd.”
In the book, Gracie is a flamingo who has a happy life with her flock. Then one day her parents announce that they are moving to live with the zebras.
Gracie isn’t quite sure what this change will mean: Can she, a tall pink bird, fit in with the stripy zebras on the savannah?
Plenty of new challenges present themselves when Gracie tries to live and belong in this new world filled with grass and four-legged animals.
The book’s author, Anna Pederson, is a full-time elementary school teacher and a part-time writer/illustrator. She grew up as a TCK in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the daughter of missionaries.
Her experiences living overseas inspire and inform her writing, hence the creation of the main character, Gracie the flamingo.
“A bright pink flamingo standing amongst a large herd of zebras is a fitting image for what being a TCK can feel like sometimes,” she says.
Pederson currently teaches 2nd and 3rd grade at an international school in Papua, Indonesia.
“Gracie and the Zebra Herd” is available on Amazon in English and Spanish and Indonesian on IngramSpark.
