The Little Team

Founder and Author a.k.a. THE Little Crab

Rebecca Juetten 朱婷 (Zhū Tíng)

Language enthusiast, perpetual student, compulsive teacher, idea machine

Mandarin level: Fluent•ish

English level: native language

French immersion mom level: struggle bus

Read Rebecca's Bio

I am a lifelong teacher (like, my sister and I used to play “school” as kids, and I was always the teacher, then I grew up and went to university to become a teacher and worked as a CELTA certified ESL teacher and private tutor). I am also a perpetual student of Mandarin (taking my first classes in high school, getting my degree in Pacific and Asian Studies, China Concentration at university, and studying independently ever since). I wrote and self-published our flagship Mandarin/English children’s storybook, Little Byron (小白任), as a means of maintining my Mandarin.

Layout/Graphic Designer, Illustrator, and Professional Sounding Board

Lisa Zak

Obsessive visualizer, communication cheerleader, predominantly left-handed

Mandarin level: zero

English level: native language

French level: beginner-intermediate

Read Lisa's Bio

From a childhood spent making our own magazines and measuring and sketching plans for my bedroom; to teenage years spent posing for, capturing, and self-taught-digital-editing photographs; to a first career in young adulthood in interior design, creativity was always in the cards for me. I design all of our company visuals, curate our social media, handle the back-end for everything related to our website, layout and assemble the files for our print-on-demand books and our digital products, dabble in illustration for said products, and act as a professional sounding board for Rebecca’s unbridled ideas.

Consulting Editor and Author

Zhang Xianjing 张娴静 (Zhāng Xiánjìng)

Highly educated diversity and inclusion advocate, bilingual thriver, raising a trilingual kid

Mandarin level: native language

English level: fluent

Read Xianjing's Bio

I was born and raised in a small village in the southeast of China and came to Canada as an international student where I received my second Master of Arts degree in International and Intercultural Communication, becoming even more passionate about intercultural competence and equity, diversity and inclusion. I joined the Little Crab team as an author (Vegetables! 蔬菜! published December 2023) and consulting editor in early 2022 because our team shares a passion for promoting diversity and inclusion through the production of completely original bilingual learning materials and stories.

Contributors