About Us

CMI Publishing Ltd
We are a very small publishing company based in East Anglia in the UK.


The Book and Story
When Valerie tried to learn Russian, the time she had available for practicing a language was while in the car acting as a taxi service for her teenage children.

The concept for this audio + book was born of her frustration at the lack of stand alone, useful, language listening material available for listening to simple, every day Russian... or other languages....

The book grew a little, with a life of its own, and should prove useful alongside formal studies - for both children and adults - towards being able to actually understand the spoken language.



Valerie Rhenius
spent 18 months as an au pair in Italy and Greece before returning to England to go to college. She found it much easier learning a language living within a native speaking family, than learning French or Latin at school. She has a degree in Applied Biology, and worked for several years in scientific publishing.



Holly Alp Holly’s website: http://www.elysiumrain.com
Is an English illustrator currently living in Spain. She has been drawing ever since she could hold a pencil and is mostly a self-taught artist. Her art is very much influenced by her surroundings. When she lived in England it was the forests, ancient woods and landscapes, certain films and even music scores. Now that she lives in Spain she finds herself captivated by the traditional fiestas, and the crazy topsy turvy town where she lives.



Marie Jose Hilton
studied languages and business in France before moving to England. She has been teaching nursery and primary school English children French for the last 15 years. She has suggested numerous ideas to incorporate into the story, has translated the story into her own language, and reads it for us in French.



Tatyana Serazudinova
is from Askabat in Turkmenistan. Her mother is Russian. Tania is married to an Englishman. They lived for several years in Kiev, spent some time in Beirut, and are now based in Moscow. Tanya has translated the story, and reads it for us in Russian.



Ekaterina Averina
has a degree in linguistics from a Russian University. She has lived in England with her family since 2000. Katia has taught Russian as a foreign language. She has advised and helped with translating the story into Russian.



Birgit Hackl
Birgit Hackl is an Austrian teacher of German as a foreign language, Spanish, English and History. She has always been fascinated by languages and other cultures and has lived and worked in Madrid, Stockholm and Cambridge. Now she lives with her partner and their cat in Graz (Austria).



Laura Gonzalez Hernandez
is from Tenerife in the Canary Islands. She studied English at University in Spain. She has been working as a Spanish language assisstant in Cambridge, England, and is now teaching English in Tenerife. Laura has translated the story, and reads it for us in Spanish.



Cristiana Bernardi Brown
is a native Italian speaker. She graduated in Italian Literature from Genoa University. She married an Englishman and lives in Cambridge, where she teaches Italian at the University. She has also been teaching Italian to primary school English children for the last ten years. Cristiana has translated the story and reads it for us in Italian.