Khamla Panyasouk

Khamla (right) is the owner and publisher of Big Brother Mouse. He was born in 1983 in the village of Khon Kham, about 50 km from Luang Prabang. He started school when he was eight and was the first in his family to learn to read. More about Khamla

Tha Tao

Tha Thao is one of our very talented illustrators. He was born in a Hmong village with no roads, electricity, or schools; his parents were rice farmers. When he was about nine years old his family packed their things, walked down the mountain, and came to Luang Prabang. More about Tha Thao

Ounla

Ounla doesn't merely help Big Brother Mouse. He drew Big Brother Mouse. Whatever personality you see in our mascot's twinkling eyes and upturned nose, Ounla put it there. More about Ounla

Sonesoulilath

Sonesoulilath (left), usually known as Sone, organizes many of the activities at our book parties. He has written two songs about books that we teach to children, and has invented or improved on several of the games. More about Sone

Sakdaphone

Sakdaphone grew up in the city, and didn't know how to ride a buffalo until he was 11! Since then, he has developed not only that skill, but also his considerable talents for both writing and drawing. More about Sakdaphone

Siphone Sengvandy

Khmu was Siphone's family language when he was a boy, but he didn't learn to write it until he came to Big Brother Mouse, and began collecting traditional Khmu folktales. That was also the first time he saw a book with color pictures. More about Siphone

Linda

Translations are difficult between any two languages that are fundamentally different. When the languages are Lao, which has many local dialects, and Hmong, which not only has many dialects but didn't have a written form until the last century, it's especially difficult. Linda (right) is helping us with these translations. More about Linda

Siphone Sounnalad

Siphone wrote two of our first books and has now finished three more, including what we believe will be the first Lao thesaurus. He also runs a shop near the college where students can rent computer time very inexpensively. More about Siphone

Seng Dao

Dao means "star" in Lao. Dao loves children as much as they love him, and when he has time to help at our book parties, he's always a star. He's also a talented artist, who was flown to Japan to receive one of his prizes. More about Dao

Gikong

Gikong (left) was one of the first artists we hired. His strong sense of composition shines through in the pictures he drew for a book about Hmong culture and customs, that we will publish as a trilingual Lao, Hmong, and English book. More about Gikong

Link

Like his older brother Khamla, Link spent many of his teenage years as a Buddhist novice. He worked hard to learn English, and puts his bilingual skills at work laying out books. But the book parties, where rural children see those books for the first time, are the high point of his week. More about Link

Somphat

Somphat, who was a novice monk until recently, wears many hats at the Big Brother Mouse office: laying out books on the computer, helping at book parties, cooking lunch, and supervising the drop-in English practice. More about Somphat

Chittakone

Since winning our second art contest, at age 14, Chittakone (right) has illustrated many of our books, as well as writing one. He has developed a range of art styles. More about Chittakone

Thongkham

One of our earliest staffers, Thongkham compiled an alphabet book with several humorous pictures for each letter of the Lao alphabet. When it was published, he made a request that we believe has never before been said by an author. Find out what he said

Kham

Kham finished secondary school without any interest in reading. Then Khamla brought her some fun books from Thailand (Big Brother Mouse hadn't published any books yet) and now she loves to read. More about Kham

Vae

With Vae's help, we've set up a small woodworking shop, to make educational games and toys. More about Vae

Yuphin

While she's new on our staff, Yuphin's already an energetic member of our book party team. And she hopes to write stories about challenges she faced as a young teenager, and lessons she learned. More about Yuphin

Sasha Alyson

After running several businesses in the United States, Sasha first visited Laos in 2003. He never saw a single book in Lao on that visit, and that's when he got the idea for Big Brother Mouse. He now spends most of his time here, as a volunteer advisor for the project. More about Sasha