Caldas's work tells the story of his three children's language development over the course of 19 years. Caldas is a native English speaker from Louisiana and a fluent but nonnative speaker of French. Caldas's wife hails from Quebec and is a native French speaker, also fluent in English. Their three children—a boy and twin girls who were born 2 years later—were raised in suburban Louisiana with extended French-immersion vacations in Quebec. Caldas and his wife attempt to make their home a French-only environment by adopting a family language policy of speaking only French themselves and by promoting French-language books, television, and media. Whereas they are successful throughout the children's early years, their project meets resistance when their eldest boy reaches about 10 and begins to reject everything French. The younger girls soon follow in his footsteps. With patience, perseverance, and regular extended visits to French-speaking Quebec, this phase passes, and by the volume's happy ending, all three children become bilingual and biliterate teens (and presumably adults).
This work stands out from the many published case studies of bilingual development in a number of ways. First, in contrast to nearly all developmental descriptions, Caldas focuses on his children's preteen and teen years. The bulk of the volume's analysis and discussion covers the children's development between the ages of 11 and 19. This is an important contribution to the literature and, as Caldas' work demonstrates, a significant period of change and development in its own right. Second, in contrast to most case studies, which tend to focus on linguistic development and close analysis of interaction exchanges, Caldas, instead, emphasizes his children's attitudes toward French and English, their relative usage of French and English in home settings, and assessments of their global proficiency and the nativeness of their accents in each language. In other words, Caldas offers us the big picture of his children's shifting competencies and preferences and how these were linked with their evolving individual identities.
The work reads a bit like a very detailed (but polished) family diary. It is a descriptive account, not written or designed to answer specific points of debate within the bilingualism literature (perhaps because most of Caldas' academic work is within the area of education and desegregation, not applied linguistics). Despite this, several key themes emerge. Perhaps the most significant is the crucial role of peers and friendship networks in shaping the children's language use patterns and preferences. Caldas documents how all three children quickly accommodated to their peer groups as they moved back and forth from Louisiana and Quebec each year. For instance, as their eldest boy transitioned into his early teens, he refused to speak French at home in Louisiana, even shouting “English! English!” at times in response to his sisters' French; however, within days of returning to his peer network in Quebec, he would speak only French with his family.
A second and related point is that the children's language preferences and proficiencies changed dramatically as they passed through adolescence, although perhaps in somewhat predictable ways. All three children, for instance, went through a phase of forcefully rejecting French in favor of English, then of reclaiming their French identities, and, finally, of growing more comfortable with their bilingual identities and gaining greater linguistic self-confidence as they matured.
Although this volume is a success story in many ways—all three children end up bilingual and biliterate, as the author proudly describes and adequately demonstrates—for most parents it will most likely not serve as a model, given the particularities (and unusualness) of the Caldas family situation. (Most parents trying to raise bilingual children do not have the option of 2 months of immersion in the weaker language each year.) The take-home message of this volume is that parents' efforts to control the language environment inside the home seemed to matter relatively little as the children entered their teen years. Caldas shows how the importance of peer groups is paramount, and if the children had not had the opportunity to have intensive French-immersion experiences each summer (attending regular school in French, working in French summer camps, taking biking trips with French-speaking peers, etc.), their parents' efforts would have, no doubt, been less successful. Time and time again, Caldas describes how his children's language preferences and usage patterns were intimately linked to their local context and peer networks.
Still, there is much of interest and importance in this study. Child language researchers who focus on bilingual development have long recognized that outside-the-home factors, such as friendship networks, adolescent identity, and popular culture, are important influences on language development. However, they have generally excluded such influences from their analysis, due largely to the methodological challenges involved. Caldas' work offers a glimpse into these important issues—and how they developed over time—for his three children.
