Starting from the innocence of a child, watering the ocean and sky of imagination

These two works, cre­at­ed by a pic­ture book duo from Hong Kong, were born out of the dai­ly grind of par­ent-child par­ent­ing and soar into the imag­i­na­tive realm of child­like inno­cence…

*exist“Orig­i­nal Pic­ture Books: Select­ed Read­ings and High­lights“In the arti­cle, I tried to ana­lyze in detail “Wait­ing” by the Hong Kong cre­ator Gao Peicong. I am very hap­py to see that new pic­ture book cre­ation mas­ters are con­stant­ly emerg­ing in Hong Kong. The fol­low­ing is anoth­er pair of cre­ative com­bi­na­tions worth look­ing for­ward to:

“I Want to Raise a Whale” and “The Best Dad in the World” are two works by a pic­ture book duo from Hong Kong, writ­ten by writer Liang Yayi and illus­trat­ed by illus­tra­tor Guo Jingyi. The sto­ries in both books are inspired by the dai­ly lives of par­ents and chil­dren, set against the back­drop of warm fam­i­ly life. Although record­ed by moth­ers, they clev­er­ly draw on the inno­cence of chil­dren. Through inno­cent and humor­ous sto­ries and clever nar­ra­tives, they extend chil­dren’s whim­si­cal imag­i­na­tion from the sea to space, from the sub­tle obser­va­tions of fam­i­ly life to wild and imag­i­na­tive fan­tasies. These books not only res­onate with chil­dren’s inner worlds, but also con­tain pro­found emo­tion­al and edu­ca­tion­al sig­nif­i­cance.

​Ocean of Imag­i­na­tion

​​The idea for “I Want to Raise a Whale” stemmed from a con­ver­sa­tion Liang Yayi had with her three-year-old daugh­ter. Lit­tle Cot­ton, the char­ac­ter in the book, is based on her daugh­ter, rep­re­sent­ing the inno­cent child of every child. Upon hear­ing her moth­er’s sug­ges­tion of “rais­ing a whale,” Lit­tle Cot­ton read­i­ly accept­ed this seem­ing­ly absurd sug­ges­tion, launch­ing into a series of wild and imag­i­na­tive ideas. In the final pic­ture book, it’s the girl her­self who pro­pos­es rais­ing a whale, a nat­ur­al asso­ci­a­tion with her moth­er’s sug­ges­tion of “rais­ing a gold­fish.” Per­haps only such bril­liant cre­ativ­i­ty can match the unbri­dled imag­i­na­tion of a child. From imag­in­ing a whale wear­ing a crown play­ing in the grass to plan­ning to take the whale to live under the sea, Lit­tle Cot­ton’s think­ing is imbued with the unique log­ic and humor of a child.

Through the inno­cent vision of Lit­tle Cot­ton, this book not only cap­tures chil­dren’s imag­i­na­tions but also reveals their sim­ple yet pro­found under­stand­ing of the world. Lit­tle Cot­ton solves prob­lems in her own way—teaching the whale how to spout, arrang­ing a “water tank” at home for the whale to live in, and even con­sid­er­ing pro­vid­ing the whale with a healthy car­rot diet—all these sto­ries are hilar­i­ous, yet deeply mov­ing, and cap­ti­vat­ing, with the pure and beau­ti­ful per­spec­tive of a child.

Par­tic­u­lar­ly note­wor­thy is the har­mo­nious inter­play between the book’s text and images, depict­ing the con­flict between fan­ta­sy and real­i­ty with dis­tinct lay­ers while main­tain­ing the sto­ry’s humor and flu­id­i­ty. Liang Yayi employs sim­ple, child-friend­ly text. Red font rep­re­sents the moth­er’s ratio­nal coun­sel, blue font depicts Lit­tle Mian­hua’s inno­cent respons­es, and the cur­sive script in the low­er right cor­ner includes child­ish “com­plaints.” This typo­graph­i­cal design clear­ly cap­tures the rhythm of the moth­er-daugh­ter dia­logue while enhanc­ing the char­ac­ter’s indi­vid­u­al­i­ty. The nar­ra­tion, in black, reg­u­lar font, also pro­vides time­ly insights into marine life, inte­grat­ing them with the sto­ry’s pro­gres­sion, adding a delight­ful and engag­ing lay­er of knowl­edge.

In terms of visu­al nar­ra­tive, Guo Jingy­i’s illus­tra­tions breathe life into the sto­ry. The pri­ma­ry col­ors of light blue, grass green, and warm yel­low cre­ate a relax­ing and warm atmos­phere, clev­er­ly blend­ing the dreami­ness of fan­ta­sy scenes with the warmth of real scenes. The illus­tra­tions are full of details, such as Lit­tle Cot­ton’s room filled with ocean-relat­ed books and dolls, and the occa­sion­al small fish out­side the win­dow hint­ing at her love for the ocean. The humor pre­sent­ed in the details of the pic­tures is very strong: the scenes of whales spray­ing water in the bath­tub and shar­ing food at the din­ing table are hilar­i­ous, and the open end­ing with the sud­den appear­ance of sharks at the end adds a smile to the whole book.

The super dad who travels through space

​The idea for “I Want to Raise a Whale” report­ed­ly orig­i­nat­ed as ear­ly as 2012. How­ev­er, with the help of an edi­tor, the author devot­ed him­self to learn­ing the unique nar­ra­tive meth­ods of pic­ture books, pon­der­ing and pol­ish­ing the man­u­script for three years before it was final­ly final­ized. With the metic­u­lous col­lab­o­ra­tion of the edi­tor and illus­tra­tor, it was final­ly pub­lished in 2019. Four years lat­er, the duo released their next book, “The Best Dad in the World.” Although a com­pan­ion piece to the pre­vi­ous one, it does­n’t con­tin­ue with rais­ing sharks or lizards, nor does it focus on the moth­er-daugh­ter rela­tion­ship. Instead, the pro­tag­o­nist is a boy named Xiao­man, show­cas­ing the same ten­der father-son rela­tion­ship. The wild imag­i­na­tion remains the same, this time mov­ing from the ocean to space.

“The Best Dad in the World” begins with a sim­ple, every­day scene: Xiao­man is picked up by his grand­fa­ther after school and, on the way home, men­tions that a class­mate’s father is a doc­tor. This seem­ing­ly ordi­nary begin­ning quick­ly launch­es into Xiao­man’s world of fan­ta­sy. Xiao­man begins to won­der, “What if all dads were doc­tors?” This high­ly diver­gent imag­i­na­tion is extreme­ly child­ish and tru­ly reflects the admi­ra­tion a child feels for their par­ents’ pro­fes­sions. From there, the sto­ry unfolds, with doc­tors, dri­vers, chefs, fire­fight­ers, space archi­tects, and even Super­man… A vari­ety of pro­fes­sions take turns appear­ing, and Xiao­man’s mind con­stant­ly con­structs inter­est­ing and exag­ger­at­ed scenes.

These fan­tasies are par­tic­u­lar­ly con­sis­tent with chil­dren’s log­ic. For exam­ple, if dads became doc­tors, all patients world­wide would be cured, but chil­dren might be hound­ed for injec­tions. If all dads were dri­vers, the sky and oceans would be clogged with vehi­cles, but dads might be too busy to return home for din­ner… And if all dads became Super­man, they would be even more busy pro­tect­ing the Earth and fight­ing aliens. These exag­ger­at­ed fan­ta­sy images not only reflect chil­dren’s unique way of think­ing, but also make the sto­ry vivid and inter­est­ing, deeply engag­ing for chil­dren.

Like “I Want to Raise a Whale,” the nar­ra­tive uti­lizes a dual nar­ra­tive of text and images, cre­at­ing a rich sense of lay­er­ing and inter­ac­tiv­i­ty. The text uses dif­fer­ent col­ors to dis­tin­guish between the voic­es of the child and the adult: blue text rep­re­sents Xiao­man’s inner mono­logue, reflect­ing his imag­i­na­tion and emo­tion­al changes; red text rep­re­sents his grand­fa­ther’s dia­logue, full of warmth and guid­ance, serv­ing as a bridge between fan­ta­sy and real­i­ty.

The illus­tra­tions, alter­nat­ing between col­or and line draw­ings, inten­si­fy the con­trast between real­i­ty and fan­ta­sy. In real­is­tic scenes, the illus­tra­tions fea­ture soft col­ors and com­fort­able com­po­si­tions, show­cas­ing real-life details like Grand­pa hold­ing Xiao­man’s hand and the traf­fic and pedes­tri­ans on the street. Con­verse­ly, in fan­ta­sy scenes, clean, crisp lines depict Xiao­man’s imag­ined “pro­fes­sion­al dads,” such as a busy doc­tor in the hos­pi­tal, a dri­ver fly­ing in the sky, and a chef sweat­ing pro­fuse­ly in the kitchen. These dense and rich scenes not only show­case a child’s bound­less imag­i­na­tion but also deliv­er a pow­er­ful visu­al impact for read­ers.

The text and images com­ple­ment each oth­er in the nar­ra­tive, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the tran­si­tions between fan­ta­sy and real­i­ty. As Xiao­man’s imag­i­na­tion spi­rals out of con­trol, the dense inter­play of pro­fes­sion­al images and the blue fan­ta­sy text inter­weave to cre­ate a humor­ous yet slight­ly tense atmos­phere. How­ev­er, when Grand­pa’s red text appears, the scene returns to real­i­ty, pro­vid­ing the child with a warm and nuanced guid­ance.

​A heart­warm­ing pre­sen­ta­tion of par­ent-child rela­tion­ships

​What’s most touch­ing about these two books is the incred­i­bly heart­warm­ing par­ent-child rela­tion­ships they por­tray. The moth­er-daugh­ter rela­tion­ship in “I Want to Raise a Whale” is both authen­tic and inspir­ing. When faced with Lit­tle Mian­hua’s “whim­si­cal ideas,” her moth­er nei­ther direct­ly denies nor indulges them. Instead, through humor and patient com­mu­ni­ca­tion, she guides Lit­tle Mian­hua to grad­u­al­ly under­stand the lim­i­ta­tions of real­i­ty. This equal and gen­tle approach to edu­ca­tion gives chil­dren full respect and sup­port, while also allow­ing par­ents and read­ers to expe­ri­ence the wis­dom and joy of par­ent­ing.

The touch­ing part of “The Best Dad in the World” is that it not only shows the inno­cence and curios­i­ty of chil­dren, but also grad­u­al­ly guides them to under­stand the essence of father­ly love. Xiao­man’s admi­ra­tion for his father is expressed through var­i­ous pro­fes­sion­al fan­tasies, and his grand­fa­ther’s guid­ance sub­tly helps him real­ize his father’s true great­ness. At the end of the sto­ry, Xiao­man final­ly real­izes that although his father is not a doc­tor, dri­ver, chef or super­man, he works hard every day and devotes him­self to the fam­i­ly. It is pre­cise­ly because of these extra­or­di­nary things in the ordi­nary that his father has become the “best dad in the world” in his heart.

Excellent combination and clever ending

​Both “I Want to Raise a Whale” and “The Best Dad in the World” demon­strate Liang Yayi and Guo Jingy­i’s pro­found insight into chil­dren’s psy­chol­o­gy and their excep­tion­al cre­ative abil­i­ty. Draw­ing from every­day life, they employ chil­dren’s lan­guage and ways of think­ing to con­struct imag­i­na­tive sto­ries. These books not only allow chil­dren to expe­ri­ence the pow­er of imag­i­na­tion, but also teach par­ents the impor­tance of sup­port and guid­ance. From the ocean to the sky, from whales to Super­man, these two books, with child­like inno­cence, reveal the vast­ness and depth of a child’s world. They are both a won­der­ful jour­ney for chil­dren and a tes­ta­ment to the love with­in a fam­i­ly.

The end­ings of both books are par­tic­u­lar­ly note­wor­thy. The first seems to con­clude with a knowl­edge­able con­clu­sion, but its open-end­ed end­ing could poten­tial­ly trig­ger a new round of wild imag­i­na­tion. The sec­ond seems to end in the style of Antho­ny Brown’s “My Father,” but it invites new lay­ers and new asso­ci­a­tions with each turn of the page. It seems this cre­ative duo has end­less cre­ative poten­tial, and we can look for­ward to more excel­lent works that cap­ture the inno­cence of child­hood.

Writ­ten in Bei­jing on Novem­ber 9, 2024