They did! I hadn’t originally imagined Grandma with pink hair, but I think it adds something great to her character. Amy is every bit the spunky, vivacious kid I wanted her to be! Meanwhile, in a large mixing bowl combine 3½ cups of the flour, 2 tsp baking powder, 2 tsp salt and 1/4 cup sugar. The Hybrid Chronicles Trilogy includes What's Left of Me (2012), Once We Were (2013), and Echoes of Us (2014). At the end of the story, Amy offers her bao to her classmates. What do you think her classmates thought of that? Would eat it? Why or why not? What would you say? AMY WU AND THE PERFECT BAO is my debut picture book, and seeing Charlene’s illustrations has honestly been one of the most thrilling parts of the whole process! I had a general idea of how I pictured the characters and illustrations, but I was eager to see how an illustrator interpreted the text and the characters as well. Charlene did such an amazing job giving Amy’s family dimension and character through the illustrations, and I especially loved the addition of the little kitty, who wasn’t mentioned at all in the original text. Now I can’t imagine the book without it!

Amy Wu loves Bao. It's one of her most favorite things to eat. Everyone in her family can make them. Perfectly. But she can't. They're either too small or falling apart or too doughy...it's always a mess. But Amy Wu isn't about to give up and creates a Bao making plan. Maybe she'll find the secret to creating a perfect one herself. Sometimes people will say “mistakes are proof that you are learning.” How can mistakes and wrong answers be helpful? By the age of twelve, Kat had started her first novel and begun plans for her life as a Real Live Author (she was rather more confident at twelve than she is even now). Said plans didn't come into fruition until seven years later, when her agent sold her Young Adult trilogy, The Hybrid Chronicles, to HarperCollins. The series, about a parallel universe where everyone is born with two souls, concluded in 2014. Charlene asks Kat: Did the story change a lot from 1st draft till the version I got to illustrate? If so, what were the big changes?

Amy Wu and the Perfect Bao” by Kat Zhang and illustrated by Charlene Chua is a beautiful book about a young girl learning to make homemade Bao. Her family members each give her suggestions that work for them, but as much as she tries it just doesn’t work for her. Even though she almost felt defeated, she perseveres and in the end realizes what works for her. Read this short story from Learning for Justice at https://www.learningforjustice.org/magazine/fall-2020/min-jees-lunch. There are follow-up questions to help you navigate talking about anti-Asian racism. This piece serves as a great conversation starter about what is happening. Some Things to Think About… Amy is a vivid little girl who lives with her mom and dad and grandma. They have a loving supportive family that's brought to life through the bright illustrations with little smiles. The pictures just exude happiness. When I first read Kat’s manuscript, I thought that Amy was a very cheerful, enthusiastic girl, with a good amount of confidence in whatever she set her mind to doing. It was great to have a story with a young Chinese girl who isn’t afraid of expressing what she wants or how she feels. Amy is also character that sort of needs to be All-Amy, all the time, and I tried to match her design to those qualities. Amy’s actions are depicted with bigger gestures, because she’s not shy at showing how she feels. Her clothes allow her freedom of movement, and feature bold and eclectic colors.

The kitchen stove in the story is more or less based on my actual stove. It’s a gas stove, because I’ve cooked with gas all my life. My mum cooked with gas, and my grandmothers did too (one grandmother liked using charcoal as well, but that’s another story). The rice cooker also looks similar to the cooker I grew up with, although the one I use now looks different. The first Amy Wu picture book, Amy Wu and the Perfect Bao, received a starred review from Kirkus, [21] and was a Kirkus Best Picture Book of 2019. [22] It was also chosen as a First and Best 2019 book by the Toronto Public Library. [23] References [ edit ]The Memory of Forgotten Things was selected as a Bank Street Best Children's Book of the Year. [20]

It’s kind of hard for me to pin down my own style (I think many artists have that problem!). I guess my art tends to be quite energetic, usually with pretty strong colors. I think it’s evolved over the years, especially now that I’m working with more non-digital art for some other projects. But at the same time, I think if you looked at the older and newer work, it’s still possible to see the same artist behind it.Amy Wu and the Perfect Bao melds together the richness of classic children's books storytelling with the cheery conciseness of newer picture books. I would like to share that this is one of six books that I won as part of the Little Free Library organization partnership with Simon & Schuster food-themed picture book bundle. Zhang's second middle grade novel, The Memory of Forgotten Things, is a return to science fiction. The twelve-year-old protagonist, Sophia Wallace, has memories of her deceased mother that don't make sense, memories that take place after her mother's death. She believes that an upcoming solar eclipse will allow her to cross over into a parallel world where her mother never died. [11] Reception [ edit ] I recommend it to anyone who likes good quality picture books with high re-readability. It's a sweet story with cute pictures. There's nothing in it to bother a sensitive child, like bullying or meanness, and it encourages children to think about solutions instead of just asking someone to solve it for them before trying.