Honestly, I got lost

I raised my children on books. Our house was always full of books within arm's reach wherever the children wandered, closing out every night as a bedtime story. They pulled books off the shelf as easily as toys, and dreamed up new games from what they found inside. Books were the friends I wanted to introduce to my children, as well as a small world I wanted to share with them, and our world always felt limitless.

After we decided to move to New Zealand, I packed that world down to what mattered most and sent it off in a container.

Language was the single most important thing for the children's settling in, and to me, the best way to learn a language had always been through books. The moment we signed our lease, we headed straight for the library. With an address to our name, we could finally get library cards and came home with a stack of Korean books and a few in English. Two days after our shipping container finally arrived, my parents flew back to Korea, and I stood in a house crowded with boxes yet somehow hollow. The first thing I did was fill the bookshelf.

But I was a stranger in this world too.

All I knew were English picture books with lovely illustrations. I had no idea what children her age here were actually reading, what schools recommended, or what other parents considered "good" books. No matter how long I browsed the library shelves, I couldn't tell at a glance, the way I could with Korean books, whether something would be too easy or too hard, what mood a book carried. I was desperate just to survive in this unfamiliar language myself. I downloaded every reading list I could find, compared them, tried to work out what made a book worth recommending — leaning on the uncertain faith that anything inside a children's publisher's catalogue probably wasn't bad. The children found their own way too, discovering favourite series at the school library. We were all figuring it out together.

It's been a year and a half since we arrived. What saddens me most is this: the way our book journey used to unfold — if she loved this book, try that one too; if this story pulled her in, here's another — that trail of one book leading to the next. I can no longer be the one to guide it. Instead of opening the way for my children through this confusing time, I find myself wandering alongside them, feeling my way forward too.

And yet we walk on, hands held tight. Sometimes bold, sometimes startled. Until we find, in the boundless possibility of this new world, not fear but joy.