Moonbeams Children’s Book Awards “Best Illustrator” Silver Winner
The Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards bring increased recognition to exemplary children’s books and their creators and are dedicated to supporting childhood literacy and lifelong reading.
An excerpt from Maya’s interview with Middle Way Education on finding Wen Hsu to illustrate Kuan Yin:
It’s uncommon for an author to choose her illustrator, but I knew this work required a sensitive person with an affinity to the cultural context of the story’s origin. How do you find that? I had access to the creative agency that Bala Kids works with, but in the end, I did my own Google search and somehow I found Wen, who has almost zero web presence. She checked all the boxes and then some. Her range and skillset are astonishing. So, I miraculously found her email address and wrote to her. This is how she replied:
“I was telling my husband and boys last week, as we passed by a temple here in Hanoi, about Kuan Yin. She was my favorite among the Bodhisattva in the Taiwanese temples I visited as a child. She was also present in the bedtime folktales my own father told me and my sisters when we were very young. And just this morning I was reading about the mother archetypes in one of Jung’s books. I can sincerely say I am amazed at how all these seemingly arbitrary dots have all connected with your email and now they suddenly make sense!”
And so, the collaboration began. Wen graciously agreed to provide some sketches of how she might illustrate Kuan Yin to the Bala team and she was officially brought on board.