王政傑 Wáng Zhèngjié Chieh Wang
A Taiwanese dad who started making children's books for one very important reader.
My daughter, Jojo, loves turning pages. Long before she could read a word, she would sit with a book and work through it page by page, deciding for herself when it was time for the next one.
So I wanted to make one she would actually want to turn.
She was born in the year of the rabbit. That's why Yuan-Yuan is a rabbit — the character is really a small reflection of her.
I'm from Taiwan, and Traditional Chinese is the language I think in. Writing the story in my mother tongue was never a question. The harder question was how to make it usable for families overseas, where one parent might speak Mandarin, the other might not, and the child is somewhere in between.
Pinyin turned out to be the answer. With Traditional Chinese, Pinyin, and English on the same page, nobody has to sit out. A parent who reads sound but not script can still read aloud. A parent who reads neither can still follow the story. The child hears their language from more than one person in the room.
團圓書房 Tuányuán Shūfáng Reunion Press
團圓 — tuányuán — is the warmest word we have. It's the whole family around one table at Mid-Autumn, at New Year, at any excuse to be together. It's also the round shape of the moon, and of a bowl of tangyuan.
書房 — shūfáng — is a study. Not a publishing house, not a corporation. A small room with books in it.
The imprint mark is a full moon and an auspicious cloud, for the same reason.
圓圓的故事還沒完 Yuán-yuán de gùshi hái méi wán Yuan-Yuan's story isn't finished
Little Rabbit Yuan-Yuan is a series about the small, ordinary things that feel enormous when you're three: using the potty, trying a food you're sure you'll hate, going to sleep in the dark. Each one wrapped in the warmth of a Chinese family — Grandma's house, warm congee, sweet tangyuan.
If you'd like to know when the next one arrives, the newsletter is the place. It's occasional, and it comes from me, not from a marketing department.