Paperback, 24 pages, 8.5X8.5, Bilingual
by Lou Vang
ISBN:  979-8269914206
Reading age: Baby - 18 years

"Nkauj Ncoom thiab tus Niam Tsov" (White Hmong version) ("Gao Cong and the Tigress") is an old Hmong folktale that has been passed down through the generations. It tells the tale of a girl who was kidnapped and raised by a tigress. Although the tigress is fierce and merciless to all, she has an unexpected and unexplainable soft spot and deep love for the girl. The tigress' reckless love for the girl leads her to allow the girl to attend the Hmong New Year festival, against her better judgment, and because of her blinded love, this is when the girl discovers that she had actually been kidnapped by the tigress many years prior.

About the Author:

Lou Vang is a Hmong-American speech-language pathologist (SLP). She has always had a wild imagination and her outlet for her imagination was always writing. She remembers always being excited when presented with creative writing assignments in school and how her teachers would find her writings so creative and captivating that they would often read her stories out loud to her class. Lou also loved helping others. She was a natural caregiver and educator. As a young girl, she would volunteer in her church’s nursery and then when she got old enough, she volunteered as a Sunday school teacher. In high school and college, she always found herself in positions mentoring others. She founded her university’s Hmong-American Student’s Association and with it, founded and instructed a Hmong literacy course. Naturally, she majored in a caregiving field and received her Master of Arts in Speech-Language Pathology from Wayne State University in 2013. Since then, she has been serving families and children with speech and language disorders. She loves speech pathology so much that she also volunteers her invaluable expertise in online communities providing education and resources for Hmong children and families. However, her heart ached knowing that it would always be impossible to be able to help everyone. This is why she decided to combine all her passions of writing and helping others along with her expertise as a SLP and become a children’s book writer. As a clinician who has a deep understanding of the many fine nuances of speech and language where there presented opportunities for deficits, Lou wanted to create resources that families and other clinicians could use to address those deficits. She wanted to write books where, when you read, you would essentially be in a speech therapy session with her. Her books are a love letter to all those children and families who she cannot provide for physically, but she hopes through her books and material, she can provide help in an even more exponential way. She hopes you will find love, healing and fun through her books.

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