The Magic of Kindness and Wildness That Awakens the Vitality of Life — A Review of Two Author-Illustrated Works by Gracey Zhang

Children’s kind­ness and wild­ness are, at their core, com­ple­men­tary forces—both are essen­tial ele­ments in awak­en­ing the vital­i­ty of life.

Gracey Zhang has quick­ly emerged in the field of chil­dren’s books with her unique visu­al style and del­i­cate abil­i­ty to cap­ture emo­tions. Her debut pic­ture­book “Lala’s Words”, pub­lished in 2021, was eye-catch­ing and won the indus­try’s pres­ti­gious Ezra Jack Keates Illus­tra­tion Award in 2022. In recent years, Gracey Zhang has col­lab­o­rat­ed with authors on at least six pic­ture books, all of which have been wide­ly praised. Among them, The Upside Down Hat (writ­ten by Steven Balt­sar) and Nigel and the Moon (writ­ten by Antwan Eady) have already been pub­lished in Chi­nese edi­tions. How­ev­er, it is her author-illus­trat­ed works that remain the most com­pelling. Her sec­ond solo title, When Rubin Plays, will soon be intro­duced to Chi­nese read­ers along­side her debut, Lala’s Words.

Lala, as described by Gracey Zhang, is a Chi­nese immi­grant girl who is ener­getic and kind-heart­ed. In her moth­er’s eyes, she is a lit­tle “wild”. She is always unwill­ing to stay at home and would rather spend the whole day with wild flow­ers and weeds. What her moth­er can­not under­stand is that Lala actu­al­ly express­es her love for the world through “dia­logue” with plants. “Lala’s Mag­ic Words” not only shows Lala’s unique con­nec­tion with nature, but also con­veys the pow­er of lan­guage and the heal­ing pow­er of kind­ness. “When Rubin Plays” focus­es on the growth of a local Boli­vian boy, Rubin. The back­ground is set in a small town on the edge of a “wild” for­est. Rubin con­ducts his own musi­cal explo­ration with the help of ani­mals, high­light­ing the joy of free and unre­strained self-expres­sion. Both books explore the impact of cul­tur­al dif­fer­ences on indi­vid­ual growth and show the “mag­ic” of the coex­is­tence of kind­ness and wild­ness in chil­dren’s hearts.

Pic­ture book enthu­si­asts may be more famil­iar with Ezra Jack Keats (1916–1983), who cre­at­ed clas­sic works such as “The Snowy Day”, “Peter’s Chair”, “Whis­tle for Willie” and “Gog­gles”. Born into a Jew­ish immi­grant fam­i­ly, Keats brought a unique sen­si­tiv­i­ty to chil­dren grow­ing up in diverse cul­tur­al back­grounds. His most cel­e­brat­ed works focus on a young Black boy named Peter, and these stories—widely acclaimed and award-winning—significantly trans­formed the land­scape of pic­ture book pub­lish­ing. The pres­ti­gious award named in his hon­or rec­og­nizes artists who make out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tions to diver­si­ty and inclu­sion in children’s literature—an ethos that Gracey Zhang’s work embod­ies with remark­able clar­i­ty and warmth.

Unique illustration style

How­ev­er, for most West­ern read­ers, the most attrac­tive thing about “Lara’s Words” is the per­fect match between its illus­tra­tion style and the sto­ry itself. The New York Times book review praised its unique illus­tra­tion style, “blend­ing warm­heart­ed mlti­eth­nic urban car­i­ca­ture with a bold-lined rough-and-tum­ble zeal, is whol­ly orig­i­nal.” And Kirkus Reviews com­ment­ed: “Lala’s enthu­si­asm blos­soms on the page.” Paul Swydan, the own­er of the The Sil­ver Uni­corn Book­store, exclaimed: “This pic­ture book is breath­tak­ing, and Zhang’s use of col­or real­ly helps the sto­ry come alive. It’s like a mod­ern inverse of The Giv­ing Tree .”

​The rea­son why I asso­ciate with The Giv­ing Tree is that, visu­al­ly speak­ing, it is main­ly the use of black and white line draw­ings. Both books are full of emo­tion and ten­sion. But why is it a “inverse”? On the one hand, The Giv­ing Tree is actu­al­ly the process of a tree that keeps giv­ing and turns into an old stump, and the life fades away. How­ev­er, Lala uses her lan­guage mag­ic to make her “amaz­ing” plant friends real­ize the “amaz­ing” life bloom. On the oth­er hand, Lala’s Words still adds bright and warm col­ors, mak­ing peo­ple feel the vital­i­ty of life, as if there is real­ly mag­ic.

I had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to ask Gracey ques­tions via email. Two of the ques­tions were: Why does this book use only sim­ple yel­low and green col­ors, but still leave a deep impres­sion? Why is Lala yel­low? Gracey’s answers were:“I’ve always loved black and white art, and yel­low just seemed to be the right colour for Lala. Sun­shine, run­ny egg yolks, flower pollen, and hazy sum­mer days.“Of course, I agree with the artist’s answer. But the yel­low labia also reminds me of the lit­tle girl in yel­low clothes in “Stone Soup”, the descen­dants of the drag­on with yel­low skin, and the noble yel­low that could only be used by the roy­al fam­i­ly dur­ing the impe­r­i­al peri­od…

The Fan Broth­ers, also Chi­nese pic­ture book artists, cre­at­ed “The Night Gar­den­er”, “Ocean Meets Sky” and “The Barnabus Project” which are also very pop­u­lar in Chi­na. They also praised:“Lala’s Words is real­ly about mag­ic; a spe­cial kind of mag­ic called kind­ness. Like the sun­light and falling rain, kind­ness nour­ish­es the world around us. This book, with its love­ly art and whim­si­cal sto­ry, will also nour­ish the read­er.”

About the magic of mother-daughter communication mode

Although this can be said to be an excit­ing “mag­i­cal” sto­ry, the way the moth­er in the book spoke to Lala also made me read some­thing that might be eas­i­er for Chi­nese peo­ple to read. I could­n’t help but ask the author in an email: “Does this sto­ry have some kind of per­son­al expe­ri­ence? Although I am very hap­py to see that Lala final­ly changed her moth­er, Lala’s moth­er always reminds me of the more neg­a­tive com­ments that many Chi­nese moth­ers often use on their chil­dren…”

Zhang’s response was straight­for­ward and warm:“Also you’re com­plete­ly accu­rate with your par­al­lels. I wrote Lala’s Words dur­ing a peri­od of ten­sion with my moth­er when our rela­tion­ship was more rocky than usu­al. I was reflect­ing on how we related/talked/communicated with each oth­er and how far back this mis­com­mu­ni­ca­tion went to child­hood and more. I sup­pose writ­ing and illus­trat­ing the sto­ry was a way to show her how I was feel­ing with­out hav­ing to go through anoth­er dif­fi­cult con­ver­sa­tion. Like I was say­ing “here read this, this is how I feel.””——It was a per­fect idea to com­mu­ni­cate effec­tive­ly with my moth­er by writ­ing a book. At the end of the book, moth­er and daugh­ter not only rec­on­ciled, but also expressed deep love for each oth­er.

I lat­er found Zhang’s accep­tance speech when she accept­ed the award online in 2022. She specif­i­cal­ly men­tioned:“ Lala’s Words is a sto­ry that I wrote from my own expe­ri­ence grow­ing up with my moth­er, a sto­ry that spoke to a lot of fears and mis­com­mu­ni­ca­tion between a lot of immi­grant moth­ers and chil­dren. All the things that go unsaid or are said. I real­ized it was­n’t just me and my moth­er, but it was a pat­tern of gen­er­a­tional com­mu­ni­ca­tion and rela­tion­ships between her moth­er and all the moth­ers before that. ”——I would like to say that this is also the deep­er lev­el of lan­guage mag­ic that touched me about this book.

Diverse visual expressions

“Lara’s Words” is some­what auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal, while “When Rubin Plays” is more free and unre­strained. In her debut pic­ture book, Gracey Zhang adopts a min­i­mal­ist illus­tra­tion style—predominantly black-and-white linework accent­ed with touch­es of col­or. This restrained visu­al lan­guage not only high­lights the emo­tion­al core of the sto­ry but also deep­ens Lala’s con­nec­tion with the world around her through its ele­gant sim­plic­i­ty. In con­trast, her sec­ond author-illus­trat­ed work bursts with rich, vivid col­ors. Set in the emo­tion­al­ly vibrant land­scape of Latin Amer­i­ca, the sto­ry teems with the wild vital­i­ty of nature and the pulse of music. The illus­tra­tions are sat­u­rat­ed with bold reds, oranges, greens, and blues. At the story’s climax—where Rubin’s music reach­es a fever pitch and ani­mals whirl through the scene—the imagery explodes into a daz­zling spec­ta­cle of sound and motion, leav­ing read­ers almost breath­less with its exu­ber­ance.

Through her mas­ter­ful use of col­or, Gracey Zhang demon­strates a remark­able abil­i­ty to adapt visu­al ele­ments to suit the emo­tion­al tone and cul­tur­al con­text of each sto­ry. Her seam­less inte­gra­tion of visu­al art and nar­ra­tive text infus­es her works with a dis­tinct emo­tion­al res­o­nance. Beyond enhanc­ing the visu­al appeal, her thought­ful inter­play of col­or and line deep­ens the the­mat­ic lay­ers of her sto­ry­telling, allow­ing the illus­tra­tions to echo and expand upon the emo­tion­al heart of the tale.

Though dif­fer­ent in plot and set­ting, both of Gracey Zhang’s books reveal a kind of “mag­ic” that lives with­in every child. In Lala’s Words, Lala’s gen­tle words and qui­et care breathe life into the plants she loves—a mag­ic root­ed in kind­ness, show­ing how lan­guage can shape and trans­form the world. In When Rubin Plays, Rubin dis­cov­ers his mag­ic through music—a mag­ic born of his yearn­ing for self-expres­sion and his deep love for sound and rhythm. Each child, in their own way, taps into a pow­er­ful inner force that brings vital­i­ty and won­der to the world around them.

The magic that can change the world

Though these two forms of mag­ic may appear dif­fer­ent on the sur­face, they both arise from the same source: the puri­ty and strength at the heart of a child. In essence, a child’s kind­ness and wild­ness are not oppo­sites but com­ple­men­tary forces—each essen­tial to awak­en­ing the vital­i­ty of life. In Gracey Zhang’s hands, kind­ness and wild­ness are nev­er in con­flict; instead, they coex­ist as the most pre­cious ele­ments of a child’s spir­it. It is through this unique blend of gen­tle­ness and untamed ener­gy that chil­dren unleash their truest vital­i­ty and cre­ativ­i­ty.

It is tru­ly heart­en­ing to see a new star ris­ing on the glob­al pic­ture book stage—Gracey Zhang, a gift­ed Chi­nese Cana­di­an illus­tra­tor and sto­ry­teller. Her unique cul­tur­al back­ground gives her a dis­tinct per­spec­tive on the world, allow­ing her to reflect on her own upbring­ing while embrac­ing a broad­er, more inclu­sive view of human­i­ty. Through her work, she reveals the “mag­ic” with­in the world of children—a mag­ic that doesn’t just dwell in kind­ness or wild­ness alone, but thrives in their har­mo­nious coex­is­tence. Her sto­ries cel­e­brate this dual­i­ty, cap­tur­ing the vibrant, com­plex spir­it of child­hood with remark­able grace and vision.

I believe this dual kind of “mag­ic” holds the pow­er to awak­en the deep­est vital­i­ty of life—not only trans­form­ing the worlds with­in sto­ries, but also leav­ing a last­ing impact on read­ers, both young and old.

Ajia writ­ten in Bei­jing on Sep­tem­ber 13, 2024