200. Ten years and 200 posts about Chinese books for young readers!

We started Chinese books for young readers ten years ago this month! Thank you to everyone who has worked with us, writing posts, giving interviews, collaborating in so many different ways. We’re still here, and looking forward to more!

Our banner image is from Zhang Xinxin‘s graphic novel Pai Hua Zi and the Clever Girl – thank you, Xinxin, for allowing us to use it! See her video on Youtube!

Here’s a list of our posts so far!

1. Chinese books for young readers (12 Sep 2016) – link
2. Gerelchimeg Blackcrane (13 Sep 2016) – link
3. Chinese children’s literature and the UK National Curriculum (14 Sep 2016) – link
4. Happy Mid-Autumn Festival! (15 Sep 2016) – link
5. The Reason for Being Late (16 Sep 2016) – link
6. Why Translations? Don’t We ‘Already Have Chinese Stories in English’? (27 Sep 2016) – link
7. A Brief History of Chinese Literature for Children, What Sells Now, and More (1 Oct 2016) – link
8. The “Warring States” world of picture books … in a big Hangzhou bookshop (2 Oct 2016) – link
9. Poems for Children – selected by Bei Dao (7 Oct 2016) – link
10. Happy Double Ninth (Chongyang) Festival! (9 Oct 2016) – link
11. Literature: Another Form of Housebuilding – Cao Wenxuan’s acceptance speech
    (14 Oct 2016) – link
12. Crossing Cultures: Belle Yang, A Story of Immigration (16 Oct 2016) – link
13. I am a tiger! (20 Oct 2016) – link
14. Bronze and Sunflower shortlisted for the Marsh Award (24 Oct 2016) – link
15. Nami Island International Picture Book Illustration Concours 2017 – shortlist (2 Nov 2016) – link
16. Zhang Xinxin and Little People’s Books (3 Nov 2016) – link
17. Calling them Asian-American books isn’t sufficient… (8 Nov 2016) – link
18. Made in China: 10 picture books you can’t miss (13 Nov 2016) – link
19. A picture’s worth a thousand words… (14 Nov 2016) – link
20. Reflecting Teenagers on a Sichuanese Mirror: Yan Ge and her stories from Pingle Township (19 Nov 2016) – link
21. Context and contradiction in translating Aroma’s Little Garden, by Qin Wenjun (30 Nov 2016) – link
22. Jin Jin (1915-1989) (27 Dec 2016) – link
23. Bing Xin and The Little Orange Lantern (29 Dec 2016) – link
24. Tyrus Wong (1910-2016) and Bambi (3 Jan 2017) – link
25. Yu Rong’s paper cuttings (11 Jan 2017) – link
26. The Good Things That Come out of Collisions (15 Jan 2017) – link
27. Helen Wang Wins the 2017 Marsh Award for Children’s Literature in Translation (30 Jan 2017) – link
28. The Ventriloquist’s Daughter: Between Fantasy and Reality – by Lin Man-chiu (23 Feb 2017) – link
29. One Child: The Story of China’s Most Radical Social Experiment – by Mei Fong (24 Feb 2017) – link
30. St Gregory’s School ‘Reading China’ book group – by Theresa Munford (25 Feb 2017) – link
31. The Story of Ink and Water – by Chun Zhang (26 Feb 2017) – link
32. Sister – by Peng Xuejun (5 Mar 2017) – link
33. I Am Mulan (13 Mar 2017) – link
34. Bronze and Sunflower – now available in the USA and Canada! (21 Mar 2017) – link
35. The King of Hide-and-Seek (8 Apr 2017) – link
36. Bilingual books from Candied Plums (17 Apr 2017) – link
37. Chinese literature festival in London, 12-14 May (5 May 2017) – link
38. The Ventriloquist’s Daughter – now available! (25 May 2017) – link
39. A Tree (9 Jun 2017) – link
40. Stephanie Gou on how Bronze and Sunflower opened a door to her memories (13 Jun 2017) – link
41. Who is Wenzheng Fu? (18 Jun 2017) – link
42. Author-illustrator Lipei Huang (25 Jun 2017) – link
43. Starfish Bay Children’s Books (10 Jul 2017) – link
44. “Plums” for Your Tongue: Chinese Children’s Literature for Language Learners (21 Jul 2017) – link
45. The 10th National Outstanding Children’s Literature Awards, 2017 (6 Aug 2017) – link
46. The Only Child, by Guojing (11 Aug 2017) – link
47. CFP: Asian Festival of Children’s Content (30 Aug 2017) – link
48. Little Soldier Zhang Ga (30 Sep 2017) – link
49. Happy Mid-Autumn Festival 2017 (4 Oct 2017) – link
50. 12 Books for the Holidays (5 Oct 2017) – link
51. David Jacobson’s survey of translations of children’s and YA Literature translated from Chinese, Japanese and Korean (16 Oct 2017) – link
52. List of Chinese-Themed Books for Kids and Teens – by the Canadian Children’s Book Centre (19 Oct 2017) – link
53. A Cross-Cultural Conversation Between Two Master Storytellers at the 2017 USBBY Conference (27 Oct 2017) – link
54. Chinese children’s and YA books, in English, 2017 (11 Dec 2017) – link
55. The 2017 Bai Meigui Translation Competition is now open! (12 Dec 2017) – link
56. What’s the difference between children’s books in China and the US? (7 Jan 2018) – link
57. Dong Yanan’s picture books (18 Jan 2018) – link
58. China Welfare Institute Publishing House: Picture Books from China, with Love & Beauty (22 Jan 2018) – link
59. Interview with Chloe Garcia Roberts, translator of the picture book “Feather” by Cao Wenxuan and Roger Mello (25 Jan 2018) – link
60. Getting to Know Rural Young Chinese Readers and Their World(s) (29 Jan 2018) – link
61. Our first 60 posts! (4 Feb 2018) – link
62. The NCTA Freeman Book Awards (6 Feb 2018) – link
63. Witness China’s New Love: the Changing Landscape of Chinese Children’s Literature (14 Feb 2018) – link
64. Books from Taiwan (1 Mar 2018) – link
65. The Tortoise Family goes to the Sea, and Blind Little Red Riding Hood (12 Mar 2018) – link
66. Children’s Books in China 2018 (and 2017) (6 Apr 2018) – link
67. Chinese Dinosaurs in an English Village (20 May 2018) – link
68. The Cao Wenxuan Children’s Literature Award (10 Jun 2018) – link
69. Teardrops of the Christmas Tree: A Memorable Childhood Reading Experience (10 Jul 2018) – link
70. Vikki Zhang, illustrator with a love of textiles and fashion (14 Aug 2018) – link
71. Let’s Talk to Kids about Sex… in Chinese, Q&A with Minjie Chen (3 Sep 2018) – link
72. People Reading in Chinese Art (15 Sep 2018) – link
73. Our First 72 Posts! (22 Oct 2018) – link
74. Theresa Mumford, Chinese Teacher (1 Nov 2018) – link
75. Jennie Liu’s Childhood Reading in the USA, 1970s-80s (8 Nov 2018) – link
76. Children’s Literature from Hong Kong in English (6 Dec 2018) – link
77. Science Fiction for Children – Selected by Liu Cixin and Han Song (10 Dec 2018) – link
78. Childhood in a Courtyard House (14 Dec 2018) – link
79. Asian Children’s Literature, Film and Animation (special issue of SARE 2018) (3 Jan 2019) – link
80. Translator Dong Haiya Studies Children’s Literature at Reading (14 Jan 2019) – link
81. Justine Laismith and the Secrets of the Great Fire Tree (31 Mar 2019) – link
82. White Horse by Yan Ge (29 Apr 2019) – link
83. Interview with Yangsze Choo, author of “The Ghost Bride” (14 May 2019) – link
84. Exams, Handwriting and School Stories (20 May 2019) – link
85. The Moose of Ewenki (27 Aug 2019) – link
86. International Research on Chinese Children’s Literature (IRSCL 2019) (12 Sep 2019) – link
87. The 10th Asian Festival of Children’s Content – Sparking New Ideas (15 Sep 2019) – link
88. Two Temples, and Two Approaches to Depicting Religions to Children (30 Oct 2018) – link
89. “My Favourite Children’s Books” – children in China vote for their Top 30 books of 2019 (3 Nov 2019) – link
90. Christmas in China (5 Jan 2020) – link
91. Our first 90 posts! (19 Jan 2020) – link
92. White Fox (16 Feb 2020) – link
93. Interview with Jennifer Feeley (17 Feb 2020) – link
94. War and Peace in China-Japan-Korea Picture Books (12 Mar 2020) – link
95. Interview with Teresa Robson (26 Mar 2020) – link
96. Frogs and Tadpoles (6 Apr 2020) – link
97. I Want To Be Good! Nicky Harman tells us about Huang Beijia’s novel (18 Jun 2020) – link
98. Children’s Books in China, 2017-2020 (27 Jun 2020) – link
99. Interview with Shih-Wen Sue Chen (7 Jul 2020) – link
100. Interview with Maisie Chan (22 Jul 2020) – link
101. Lizzie Marshall compares stories about wolves (1 Aug 2020) – link
102. To Catch a Fish – by Zhang Wei and Zhang Honglei (8 Aug 2020) – link
103. The Top 10 Bestselling Children’s Books in China in July 2020 (3 Sep 2020) – link
104. Chinese children’s literature in Italy – interview with Paolo Magagnin (7 Sep 2020) – link
105. The Sino-Japanese War as Portrayed in Youth Literature (12 Sep 2020) – link
106. Chinese Children’s Books in the Netherlands – by Annelous Stiggelbout (19 Sep 2020) – link
107. Chinese Children’s Books in Swedish (24 Sep 2020) – link
108. Chinese children’s books collected by Arvind Gupta (27 Sep 2020) – link
109. Wiley Blevins (of Reycraft Books) on Chinese picture books (30 Sep 2020) – link
110. Chinese books published by Reycraft Books, 2019-2020 (30 Sep 2020) – link
111. White Ravens – Chinese titles, 1984-2020 (8 Oct 2020) – link
112. Interview with Lidong Xiang, PhD student in Chinese children’s literature at Rutgers University (13 Oct 2020) – link
113. Nicky Harman, on Huang Beijia’s novel “Flight of the Bumblebee” (29 Oct 2020) – link
114. Interview with Kate Titmuss, teacher of Mandarin in the UK (5 Nov 2020) – link
115. The winners of the 2020 Chen Bochui International Children’s Books Awards (14 Nov 2020) – link
116. CCPPG’s Sino-foreign collaborative programme on children’s books (28 Nov 2020) – link
117. Interview with Rachel Yung-Hsin Wang (5 Dec 2020) – link
118. Interview with Silvia Torchio, Italian translator of Jimmy Liao (2 Jan 2021) – link
119. “Sleepy, Sleepy New Year” – Frances Weightman tells us about a new book for Chinese New Year (11 Jan 2021) – link
120. Interview with publishing consultant Solene Xie (18 Jan 2021) – link
121. The Mandarin Excellence Programme (MEP) – Independent Evaluation Report (2 Feb 2021) – link
122. Children’s books in English about famous people of Chinese heritage (20th-21st century) – (10 Feb 2021) – link
123. Shanghai Animation Film Studio Retro Season – spring 2021 (14 Feb 2021) – link
124. Interview with Yue Wang on Feminist Adaptations of Traditional Tales in Contemporary Chinese Fantasy Narratives (21 Feb 2021) – link
125. The Zhang Leping Picture Book Awards (11 Mar 2021) – link
126. Stephanie Gou reviews “Dragonfly Eyes” by Cao Wenxuan (23 Mar 2021) – link
127. “Dragonfly Eyes” by Cao Wenxuan – reviews and feedback (27 Mar 2021) – link
128. Interview with Wally De Doncker about his collaboration with Chinese illustrators (2 Apr 2021) – link
129. Interview with author-illustrator Xiong Liang (2 Apr 2021) – link
130. Stephanie Gou recommends “I beat the nightmare monsters with 32 farts” (10 Apr 2021) – link
131. Chinese picture book inspires songwriters in Canada (1 May 2021) – link
132. Guavarama and a Montessori Chinese Learning Environment (21 May 2021) – link
133. White Ravens 2021 (30 Jun 2021, backdated) – link
134. The Whole World Inside Nan’s Soup (5 Jul 2021) – link
135. Interview with Helen H. Wu of Yeehoo Press (13 Jul 2021) – link
136. Yeehoo Press (13 Jul 2021) – link
137. Interview with Tim Thurston about Tibetan children’s books (12 Aug 2021) – link
138. White Fox in the Forest (23 Sep 2021) – link
139. Chinese children’s books in the UN Sustainable Development Goals Book Club (31 Oct 2021) – link
140. Georgine Leung on translating food between cultures (13 Nov 2021) – link
141. Shenzhen Reading Month and The Best Children’s Books of 2021 (14 Nov 2021) – link
142. New Picture Books by Illustrator Yu Rong (13 Nov 2021) – link
143. Monkey King, Journey to the West – the best English translation! (6 Dec 2021) – link
144. Interview with author Huang Beijia (14 Dec 2021) – link
145. The 2021 My Favourite Children’s Book List (27 Dec 2021) – link
146. Ajia, the children’s book author, translator, researcher and promoter of reading – interviewed by Dong Haiya (17 Jan 2022) – link
147. I Want to Be Good, and The Worst Witch (1 Feb 2022) – link
148. The Gale – by Mo Yan, illustrated by Zhu Chengliang (11 Feb 2022) – link
149. Interview with Chiara Tognetti about Chinese children’s books and rights (2 Mar 2022) – link
150. Rén – how to live a happy and fulfilled life, by Yen Ooi (4 Apr 2022) – link
151. Amanda Ruiqing Flynn on children’s books and bookstores in Taiwan and Singapore (23 Apr 2022) – link
152. Jemma Stafford translates the ‘My Cat Hates Me’ series (22 Jun 2022) – link
153. About Chinese YA – interview with Chenchen Du (17 Aug 2022) – link
154. Mo Yan’s “The Gale” revisited (1 Sep 2022) – link
155. Interview with Xueting C. Ni (25 Sep 2022) – link
156. Flight of the Bumblebee – The Playlist (24 Feb 2023) – link
157. White Ravens 2022 (14 Mar 2023) – link
158. Interview with Christina Matula, author of the Holly-Mei books (13 May 2023) – link
159. More about teaching Mandarin in the UK, by Kate Titmuss (16 Aug 2023) – link
160. The Chinese Panda Book Awards – 34 winning titles since 2015! (13 Oct 2023) – link
161. The Chinese Panda Book Awards 2023-2024 – here’s the shortlist! (13 Oct 2023) – link
162. The 2023 White Ravens are here! (18 Oct 2023) – link
163. The Power of Chinese Narrative – interview with Sabina Knight (3 Nov 2023) – link
164. The 2023 Chen Bochui Award winners (16 Nov 2023) – link
165. The Chinese Panda Book Awards 2024-2025 – shortlisted titles (26 Sep 2024) – link
166. World Kid lit Month 2024 – GLLI focus on Taiwan (30 Sep 2024) – link
167. The 2024 White Ravens are here! – with ten Chinese-language titles (11 Oct 2024) – link
168. Interview with Jenny Bond – on the complex identities of Chinese girls who attended western Christian missionary schools in Republican China (20 Oct 2024) – link
169. The Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award – nominations from China and Taiwan (past and present) (10 Nov 2024) – link
170. “Perfect Picture Books” from Cardinal Media (23 Nov 2024) – link
171. The Bestselling Children’s Books in China, December 2024 (17Jan 2025) – link
172. Backbone of the Nation: 40 of China’s top scientist-academicians (22 Jan 2025) – link
173. Chinese children’s books in the UN Sustainable Development Goals Book Club – the full list (15 Feb 2025) – link
174. Bologna Ragazzi Awards – the eight nominations from China in the Sustainability category (25 Mar 2025) – link
175. FOUR WINNERS! – The Chinese Panda Book Awards 2024-2025 (23 Apr 2025) – link
176. The 12th National Awards for Outstanding Children’s Literature – 18 winning titles! (26 Jul 2025) – link
177. China Events at the Bologna Children’s Books Fair 2025 (24 Aug 2025) – link
178. The Nature and Me series (26 Aug 2025) — link
179. The iReader’s 100 Children’s Books from 2024 (for children aged 6-12) (4 Sep 2025) – link
180. How many Chinese books in #WorldKidLitMonth? (9 Sep 2025) – link
181. The 2025 Feng Zikai Chinese Children’s Picture Book Awards have been announced (19 Sep 2025) – link
182. The 2025 White Ravens are here! (22 Oct 2025) – link
183. Traditional Chinese children’s primers – a sourcebook (19 Nov 2025) – link
184. Shenzhen Reading Month 2025 – the Ten Best Books (and the 30 finalists) (20 Nov 2025) – link
185. USBBY’s Outstanding International Books – China, 2006-2026 (18 Jan 2026) – link
186. New English editions of picture books by Hu Yifan and Xiong Liang (5 Feb 2026) – link
187. More children’s books about people of Chinese heritage in the 20th-21st century (22 Feb 2026) – link
188. Key Colours China – Competition Winners 2017-2023 (25 Feb 2026) – link
189. Chinese children’s books in English – February 2026 (28 Feb 2026) – link
190. Chinese picture books at the UN Headquarters, New York (3 Mar 2026) – link
191. Chinese books for young readers – news – March 2026 (31 Mar 2026) – link
192. Cai Gao wins the Hans Christian Andersen Award 2026 ! (14 Apr 2026) – link
193. The “For Children” series (series editor: Bei Dao) (13 May 2026) – link
194. Five Chinese authors and their childhood reading (6 Jun 2026) – link
195. Chinese books for young readers – news – July 2026 (4 Jul 2026) – link
196. Beijing International Book Fair 2026 – Teri Tan on Chinese children’s books (6 Jul 2026) – link
197. Interview with Professor Karen Sands O’Connor (9 Jul 2026) – link
198. Marketing Chinese Children’s Books – new book by Frances Weightman! (6 Sep 2026) – link
199. Chinese books for young readers – news – Aug-Sept 2026 (13 Sep 2026) – link
200. Ten years and 200 posts about Chinese books for young readers (14 Sep 2016) – link

199. Chinese books for young readers – news – Aug/Sept 2026

August was the IBBY World Congress! And September is World Kid Lit Month! Here’s a quick round-up of some of the things we’ve seen!

Cai Gao received her Hans Christian Andersen Award (Illustration) at the IBBY World Congress in Ottawa, 6-9 August 2026. Congratulations, Cai Gao! (see our post 192) — more information about this award here

IBBY POSTER: The beautiful poster for the 2026 IBBY World Congress – in Ottawa, 6-9 August 2026 – is the creation of Canadian illustrators, Eric and Terry Fan, and features a Canadian moose and birds chirping 23 different languages! Read more about the poster design and the Fan brothers here – link.

We can’t help wondering if the IBBY Congress moose is a distant cousin of The Moose of Ewenki – by Gerelchimeg Blackcrane, illus. Jiu Er, tr. Helen Mixter (Greystone Books, 2019) ISBN 978-1771645386 – see our post 85)

SEPTEMBER IS #WORLDKIDLIT MONTH – It’s the 10th anniversary! Thanks to Jackie on the worldkidlit blog for including us on your post “10 best sites for world kid lit recos! – link Here’s a link to all the WKL blogs that mention Chinese books – link

YULU’S LINEN – by CAO Wenxuan, illus. Suzy LEE, tr. Helen WANG – thanks to Jackie Friedman Mighdol for studying it so deeply and sharing her thoughts about it in “I’d rather learn my life lessons in fiction” on substack!

YA LIT: China’s Missing Genre – The Struggle for YA Literature, by Yue (Cathy) Wang, on the Global Literature in Libraries (GLLI) website, 10 May 2026 – link

NEW BOOK: Youth in Chinese History: Educational Practices and Representations of Children and Young People between Tradition and Modernity, edited by Guilia Falato and Renata Vinci (Routledge, 2026) ISBN 9781041160502 — This project was supported by the British Academy and the Leverhulme Trust. Project website – link. Publisher’s website – link.

Qin, Junhan (2026). Development of Chinese and Foreign Picture Books from the Perspective of Publishing History, Social Sciences and Humanities 3 (3): 61–67. DOI: D10.63313/SSH.9084 – link

Reid, S.F., Yang, S. (2026). Analyzing Representations of Asian American Characters and Stories on the Book Covers of Newbery, Caldecott, and Printz Award-Winning Children’s and Youth Literature. Children’s Literature in Education (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10583-026-09712-8

Sun, Q., Huang, C. I., Casey, K., Su, H., & Wang, T. (2026). Rates of Gender Representation in Children’s Literature Across Cultures: A Comparison of Chinese vs. U.S. Children’s Books. Early Education and Development, 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/10409289.2026.2720619 – link

Wee, S.J., Xue, M., Lo, Y. et al. (2026). Unpacking East Asian/Asian American Experiences of Racism and Microaggressions Portrayed in Children’s Picturebooks, Early Childhood Education Journal 54, 1593–1606. DOI: 10.1007/s10643-025-01954-3 – link

198. Marketing Chinese Children’s Books – new book by Frances Weightman!

We’re delighted to share details of this new book by Professor Frances Weightman, of the University of Leeds!

Marketing Chinese Children’s Books – Paratext and the Politics of Authorship, by Frances Weightman (Bloomsbury Academic, 2026 – Perspectives on Children’s Literature series) ISBN 978-1350273559.

The following details are from the publisher’s website:

DESCRIPTION: An exploration of the strategies used by Chinese children’s publishers to package and promote their authors, Marketing Chinese Children’s Books situates these approaches within their historical, social and cultural contexts and considers what implications this may have for publishers looking to market Chinese children’s books to global audiences.
Focusing on the abundant paratextual elements of many contemporary Chinese children’s books, including prefaces, interviews, book covers and author photographs, this study reveals the various constraints on the self-fashioning of popular children’s authors in the People’s Republic of China today. Spotlighting some of China’s best-selling children’s authors – Cao Wenxuan (the first Chinese recipient of the Hans Christian Andersen Award), Yang Hongying, Shen Shixi and Gerelchimeg Black Crane – Frances Weightman considers how the marketing of these authors constructs and presents them variously as academic and political authorities; friends and confidantes; or trusted guides and gatekeepers of the natural world. This is a timely study of the construction of Chinese children’s authorship coinciding with the rapid expansion of children’s literature publishing in China and its reception on the world stage.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements
List of Illustrations
Prologue
Chapter 1: Producing and consuming children’s books in China today
Chapter 2: Framing the Storyteller
Chapter 3: Writing Childhood
Chapter 4: Writing Authority
Chapter 5: Writing the Wild: Harmony and Authenticity
Chapter 6: Becoming Global Storytellers
Epilogue
Appendix
Bibliography
Index

Recognize the cover art? — Golden Childhood, by Shen Yang, illus. Chen Huifang , tr. Nicky Harman (Balestier Press, 2023). ISBN 978-1913891428 — Feature on the Leeds Centre for New Chinese Writing website (Feb-Mar 2024) // https://www.shenyangyang.com

197. Interview with Professor Karen Sands O’Connor

On 27 April 2026 Professor Karen Sands O’Connor gave a fascinating presentation to Ocean University 中国海洋大学, Qingdao, China, titled “Prizing East Asia: British Children’s Publishing By and About East Asians.” She very kindly agreed to an interview with us.

Please tell us about yourself. What would you like our readers to know about you?

I’m a visiting professor with the University of Sheffield’s School of Education.  I’ve taught literature classes for thirty years, mostly children’s and YA literature and the history of representation in British and American children’s books.  Currently, I’m also the collections director of the Every Voice, Every Story (EVES) resource library, which is designed to help educators, librarians and caregivers understand the history of representation in Britain.

The Every Voice, Every Story Resource Library, currently being developed in Sheffield, offers a counterview of British children’s book history. Through thousands of children’s books from the 1780s onward, as well as educational materials, original illustrations and manuscripts, advertisements, children’s writing, and items from children’s popular culture, the collection focuses on historical and contemporary representations of minoritised communities: racially minoritised, but also those communities minoritised through class, gender, sexuality, religion, and ability. The collections include ‘classic’ texts, but also those which have been hidden by history, texts suggesting that positive representation of minoritised people and communities was neither absent nor, in some cases, rare. The aim of EVES is to highlight both historical racism and its continuing effects on children’s literature, and the alternative histories which have not typically been valued or recognised by standard and scholarly histories of children’s books. We offer workshops and seminars to teachers, librarians, and students of all levels to introduce these histories, and are open for scholars interested in doing research into representation in children’s books. [Source: Listening to Every Voice and Every Story: EVES Resource Library and Research Collection, Dublin City University MA in Children’s and Young Adult Literature blog, 28 Apr 2026]

People working on East Asian/Chinese children’s books often have personal connections with the language and/or culture – could you tell us about your own journey towards East Asian/Chinese children’s books?

Really, I’m just at the start of my journey. I’ve worked with doctoral students from China recently, and learned a lot from them, including about the plight of Left Behind children. I became interested in expanding EVES’ collections to include more material that demonstrated the way that British writers represented China and Chinese people—as well as the way that Chinese people and British Chinese people are starting to represent themselves in children’s literature published in the UK and US.

The Story of Ming, written and illustrated by CHIANG Yee (Puffin Books, 1944). [Source: Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration]

The structure of your presentation gave a chronological survey of interests and attitudes (positive and negative) first towards China and Chinese things and then towards Chinese people. Could you elaborate on the motivations of those involved in the creation of some of the books you mentioned? The authors, the illustrators, publishers, reviewers, booksellers, etc?

It’s impossible to know what motivated people from the past, but one can definitely see trends.  In the 19^th century, travel to China by ordinary Britons was uncommon, and therefore children’s books showed a real curiosity about what the country was like. The Hyde Park exhibition of Nathan Dunn’s Ten Thousand Chinese Things in the 1840s allowed British people to ‘know’ China through objects such as clothing, weaponry, religious items and artwork, but actual Chinese people remained unknown to most British people right through the beginning of the 20^th century. Artists like Walter Crane, who admired Chinese and Japanese art, copied the style in some of his work, particularly his version of Aladdin. But at the turn of the century, fears about Chinese immigration and its effects on British and American workers led to the idea of ‘Yellow Peril’ and this created and cemented many stereotypes about Chinese people in popular media—including children’s books. It took the efforts of British authors travelling to China and Chinese authors in Britain (and their panda friends) to correct some of these stereotypes and bring us the wealth of quality children’s books that exist today.

I’d like to ask about international interaction in the academic field of children’s books. As a leading scholar, having received a BA travelling professorship, you are perhaps uniquely placed to comment on how international the field is? 

There isn’t enough international interaction. Of course, the International Research Society for Children’s Literature (IRSCL) and the International Board on Books for Youth (IBBY) hold conferences, but European and North American scholars often have an easier time attending these conferences because they don’t tend to have the visa or financial considerations that some other countries’ citizens might face.  And long-term international collaboration is difficult to fund and (in the current global political climate) often unpopular.  Britain, for example, has restricted postgraduate student visas; and the British Academy programme that brought me to Britain is no longer awarding fellowships. I think we need to make more use of global connectedness, through online lecture series (the University of Wrocław has an international speakers series – the International Voices in Children’s Literature Studies series – and of course Ocean University in China also brings in international speakers, among others)—but we should also be finding ways to collaborate online.  I’m currently developing an exhibition on migration, and I’m hoping to be able to include international scholar interviews to move the exhibition beyond Britain’s boundaries.

Munyaradzi Mawere, The Struggle of African Indigenous Knowledge Systems in an Age of Globalization. A Case for Children’s Traditional Games in South-Eastern Zimbabwe (Langaa RPCIG, 2012) [Source: Project Muse]

An additional concern, and one academia in Europe and North America will have to get to grips with, is that there are ways of understanding, evaluating and producing knowledge that simply aren’t acknowledged in or valued by traditional academic structures.  Colonial hierarchies of knowledge and people continue to prevent us from being truly international.  Sandy Littletree’s work on Indigenous Systems of Knowledge offers ways of rethinking fields such as librarianship and archive study, and Munyaradzi Mawere has written about African systems of knowledge in relation to children’s games. These are just two examples, but I think scholars in Europe and North America, particularly those from former imperial cultures, need to take time out to consider how indigenous scholars can improve our understanding of children’s literature around the world.

There has been an intense focus on developing children’s books in China in the 21st century. Almost all prizewinning books from around the world have been translated into Chinese. This makes China a unique place to study the world’s children’s books. Could you develop your last answer with specific regard to China?

Unfortunately, I think it is still quite a one-way street. I’ve had fantastic Chinese students in my classes, and known Chinese scholars in Britain as well, but I think some of the ‘mysterious unknown’ stereotypes still hang on when it comes to British people thinking about China. Speaking with Chinese students has made me interested, not just in children’s books, but in thinking about language and philosophy as well and the ways that these shape children’s books and child readers. China has, as you say, translated the world’s prize-winning children’s books, but how many Chinese children’s books (prize-winning or not) are translated into English by British and North American publishers? In Britain, this is beginning to change through the work of illustrators like Yu Rong, who is keen to increase the number of Chinese translations in the UK, and to help authors and illustrators work together across cultures (see our post no. 142). But this work requires the awareness and willingness of publishers, teachers, librarians, and booksellers to get these books into children’s hands.

Five Chinese Brothers, by Claire Huchet Bishop, illus. Kurt Wiese (Putnam Publishing Group, 1938)

Please tell us about your own childhood reading. Any favourite books? Do you associate your early reading with any particular people or places?

I was lucky enough to be brought up in a household that valued books; my brothers and sister and I all had our own bookshelves, and we made weekly trips to the library (sometimes more in summer).  But there weren’t many Chinese stories for kids in 1970s America that were free from stereotypes, especially not contemporary realism.  I read a lot of folktales, and this included Claire Huchet Bishop’s retelling of the Chinese folktale Ten Brothers (her version only had five brothers).  Huchet Bishop’s retelling included problematic illustrations by Kurt Wiese, but the story—of brothers who had supernatural powers and used them to cheat death—stuck with me.  I only recently discovered that the Chinese version of the story has a greater emphasis on cooperation and on thwarting the exploitation of labourers working on the Great Wall.  This is a good example of a story that I think would have real resonance in English-speaking countries at the moment, and maybe someone will publish a new version for children!

Any weblinks/staff page/social media you would like to share?

If anyone is interested in contacting me or finding out more about EVES resource library and the work we do, my university staff page is Professor Karen Sands-O’Connor | Education | The University of Sheffield and I (occasionally) post on Bluesky, @ksandsoconnor.bsky.social.

196. Beijing International Book Fair 2026 – Teri Tan on Chinese children’s books

Teri Tan has been reporting on Chinese children’s books – book fairs, publishers, and publishing – for Publishers Weekly for fifteen or more years now. Here’s a link to her latest post about the Beijing International Book Fair (BIBF), June 2026: Beijing Book Fair 2026: Going Beyond Print Books and Looking Within for New Children’s Content.

195. Chinese books for young readers – news – July 2026

A few pieces of news…

BOOK NEWS – The Water Flower. The Journey of a Lotus Seed, by Yingting CHEN, illus. by Huaqing, tr. unnamed (post wave, 2025) ISBN 978-1836270188. The Chinese original 《一顆蓮子的生命旅程》was a White Ravens 2022 (see our post no. 157). Yingting Chen 陈莹婷 graduated from the Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and has authored several books about plants. Huaqing 花青, born in Shanghai, studied in the Chinese Painting Department of the China Academy of Art, and has master’s and doctoral degrees in fine arts from Chinese National Academy of Arts. — link

NEW BOOK – Otter’s New Neigbors, by LI Xingming, tr. Shan Chen (Charlesbridge, 2026). ISBN 9781623547554 – link

INTERVIEW – “Meet the Author-Illustrator: Li Xing-ming on Loneliness and Connection” – interview by Wang Li, WorldKidLit, 25 May 2026 — link

EXHIBITION: “Ed Young’s Bright Worlds – Gesture and Feeling in 60 Years of Picture Books for Children”, at the Museum of Chinese in America, New York, 14 May – 13 Sept 2026 – link. This exhibition is part of MOCA’s Luminaries for America250, a yearlong celebration of Chinese American historymakers at the Semiquincentennial – link – Ed Young (YANG Zhicheng 杨志成) (1931-2023).

EXHIBITION REVIEW: ‘Ed Young’s Bright Worlds’: Creating a Retrospective Exhibition. Review by Krystyna Poray Goddu, Publishers Weekly, 2 July 2026 – link – Ed Young (YANG Zhicheng 杨志成) (1931-2023).

MOVIE: Bronze and Sunflower (2025) was released in China on 8 May 2026. To see trailers on Youtube etc, search for “Qingtong & Kuihua” (which means “Bronze & Sunflower”). At the Golden Rooster Awards 2025, it was nominated for Best Children’s Film (Kun-Hou CHEN) and Best Editing (Ching-Sung LIAO).

BESTSELLERS – The Top Ten Bestselling Children’s Books in China, May 2026 – The release in China of the movie Bronze and Sunflower on 8 May 2026 sent Cao Wenxuan’s novel of the same title to the No.1 and No.2 spots (by two different publishers) on OpenBook’s list of Children’s Bestsellers. The two publishers are Jiangsu Juvenile and Children’s Publishing House, and Foreign Literature Press [but the ISBN indicates Tiantian Publishing House]. At No. 7 was A Dog Named Money, by Bodo Schäfer, tr. Wen Yi (CITIC Publishing House Co. Ltd). The other seven titles in the Top Ten were in the massively-popular “Treasure Hunting” 大中华寻宝系列 series, by Jingding Comic, published by 21st Century Press Group. (Source: Erin L. Cox, China Bestsellers, May 2026: Screen Adaptations Drive Book Sales, Publishing Perspectives, 26 June 2026 – link)

1. Bronze and Sunflower, by CAO Wenxuan (Jiangsu Juvenile and Children’s Publishing House, 2005) ISBN 978-7534633362 // 曹文轩：《青铜葵花》江苏少年儿童出版社
2. Bronze and Sunfower, by CAO Wenxuan (Foreign Literature Press, but ISBN indicates it should be Tiantian Publishing House, 2015). ISBN 978-7501609413 // 曹文轩：《青铜葵花》天天出版社
3. Treasure Hunting in Beijing, Jingding Comic (21st Century Press Group, 2023) ISBN 978-7556869589 // 京鼎动漫 : 《北京寻宝》21世纪出版社集团
4. Treasure Hunting in Jilin (21st Century Press Group, 2024) ISBN 978-75568822236 // 京鼎动漫 : 《吉林寻宝》21世纪出版社集团
5. Treasure Hunting in Shanghai (21st Century Press Group, 2023) ISBN 978-7556869572 // 京鼎动漫 : 《上海寻宝》21世纪出版社集团
6. Treasure Hunting in Ningxia (21st Century Press Group, 2025) ISBN 978-7556889884 // 京鼎动漫 : 《宁夏寻宝》21世纪出版社集团
7. [Kira and] A Dog Named Money, by Bodo Schäfer, tr. Wen Yi (CITIC Publishing House Co Ltd, 2020) ISBN 978-7521726473 // 博多·舍费尔, 文燚 : 小狗钱钱（出版20周年珍藏纪念版）
   中信出版集团
8. Treasure Hunting in Shanxi (21st Century Press Group, 2023) ISBN 978-7556878871 // 京鼎动漫 : 《山西寻宝》21世纪出版社集团
9. Treasure Hunting in Shaanxi (21st Century Press Group, 2023) ISBN 978-7556869664 // 京鼎动漫 : 《陕西寻宝》21世纪出版社集团
10. Treasure Hunting in Hainan (21st Century Press Group, 2023) ISBN 978-7556869831 // 京鼎动漫 : 《海南寻宝》21世纪出版社集团

UPDATE 8 July 2026 – added 2 items: Exhibition Review and Movie

194. Five Chinese authors and their childhood reading

We often ask our interviewees about their childhood reading, so I was interested to see an article that looked at what five very well-known Chinese authors – Lu Xun, Zhou Zuoren, Zhang Tianyi, Wang Anyi and Shen Congwen – read when they were young. The article was published on Children’s Day (1 June), 2017. I’ve summarized and edited it below.

193. The “For Children” series (series editor: Bei Dao)

In October 2016, we posted about the “For Children” series (给孩子系列) – with the poet Bei Dao 北岛 as series editor – published by CITIC Press (中信出版社 中信出版社·活字文化 中信出版集团) (see post no. 9). At that time, five volumes had been published. An initial series of ten was planned, described as “A Liberal Arts Introductory Course Designed by Poet Bei Dao Specifically for Chinese Children” (“给孩子” 第一辑：诗人北岛专为中国孩子打造的博雅启蒙课 www.chinawriter.com.cn 30 July 2018)

192. Cai Gao wins the Hans Christian Andersen Award 2026 !

Wonderful news! CAI Gao 蔡皋 has won the Hans Christian Andersen Award for illustrators 2026. Congratulations to her and to Michael Rosen, winner of the author’s award!

191. Chinese books for young readers – news – March 2026

Here’s a selection of news that we’ve come across this month. The Bologna Book Fair is coming up (13-16 April). As usual, it promises to be a wonderful experience!

NEW BOOK – Lost in Peach Blossom Paradise (Little Yu and the Treelings) by XIONG Liang, tr Chloe Garcia Roberts (Elsewhere Editions, 12 May 2026) ISBN 9781962770491 – link [for more about Xiong Liang see our post no. 129]

NEW BOOK – What Grandpa Taught Us 阿公教的, by Parker SU and Connie CHANG (writersclique.com, 2026) ASIN B0GSNPLSB2 – Bilingual book – link

INTERVIEW – review and interview with author/illustrator Hsu-kung LIU about his new book Little Monk Writes Rain, tr. Rachel WANG Hsin-yu. On the website Let’s Talk Picture Books, run by Mel Schuit – link

REVIEW – Art and the Otherworldly in Three New Chinese Picture Books (Leonard Marcus, The New York Times, 7 March 2026) – “In Little Monk Writes Rain, Yulu’s Linen, and Lost in Peach Blossom Paradise, spirited children meet Eastern visual traditions that have a life of their own… – link

BOOK NEWS – Ellie Awakens the Spirits of Tam Kung / Ellie réveille les esprits du temple Tam Kung Temple, by Lori WONG and Ashton LOUIE (The Yen Wo Society, 2025) — Bilingual book, funded by the Government of Canada, created for the 150th anniversary of Victoria’s Tam Kung Temple, Canada’s oldest Chinese temple and a designated National Historic Site. – link

BOOK NEWS – Blue Feet Monsoon, by Cynthia Green (Cynthia Green, 2025). ISBN 978-2959956706 – “A girl. Three passports. Some grannies. A monsoon or two. And a well-traveled sarong.” – link

BOOK NEWS – Sade and Walee Take Amala to China, by Esther OLADIMEJI (Omeda, 2026) – introduces children to Chinese language and literature through a Nigerian lens – link

BOOK NEWS – Oudi Ni Hao, by Donikue Campbell (independently published, 2025) ISBN 979-8290890913 – a multilingual book for Jamaican children – in Mandarin, Jamaican Creole and English – link

PODCASTS – Heys Wolfenden, Head of English, Kings College School Chengdu, hosts the podcast What! The Heys. He has interviewed Eric Zhang (Ep.5), author of many children’s books, including I Want To Go To the Moon (Clavis, 2025, ISBN: 9798890631107) and Curtis Chin (Ep.14), author Everything I learned, I learned In A Chinese Restaurant: A Memoir (Little Brown and Co, 2023, ISBN 9780316507653), about his upbringing, coming-of-age and coming-out in Detroit in the 1980s.

ACADEMIC BOOKS & PAPERS

BOOK – Chinese Animation. Multiplicities in Motion, ed. by Daisy Yan DU, John A. CRESPI, and Yiman WANG (Harvard University Press, 2025) ISBN 9780674297531

Chen Yang (2026). A Multimodal Metaphor Perspective on the Globalization of English Translations of Chinese Children’s Picture Books: A Case Study of Book Covers, Open Access Library Journal 13, pp. 1-11. DOI: 10.4236/oalib.1114867 – link

Fu, C., H. Xu, S. Stjernswärd, & S. Glasdam (2025). Socialisation of Children to Cope With Death, Bereavement and Grief – A Berger and Luckman Inspired Analysis of Children’s Picture Books in a Chinese Context. OMEGA – Journal of Death and Dying, 6 Feb 2025. https://doi.org/10.1177/003022282513136 – link

Guo Wenyu (2025). Transnational Funds of Knowledge as Counternarratives: Chinese Students Respond to Multicultural Children’s Literature. Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education, vol. 127, issue 9-10.  https://doi.org/10.1177/01614681251393804 – link

Hu Yuting and Yuan Nan (2025). The Reframing of Biographical Literature for Contemporary Chinese Children: Multimodal Narratives, Diverse Role Models, and Market Reception. Strenæ. Recherches sur les livres et objets culturels de l’enfance 27 (2025). https://doi.org/10.4000/15jui – link

Li Xueyi and Tan Zaixi (2026). A Historical Study of the Outbound Translation of Chinese Children’s Literature (1949−2024): Developments and Characteristics. Journal of Foreign Languages, 2026, 49(1): 100-107. – link

Mao, W., & Pesco, D. (2025). Raising young children in multilingual Montreal: Chinese-Canadian parents’ language choices and storybook reading style. Research on Preschool and Primary Education, 4(1), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.55976/rppe.4202614201-12 – link

Wang, Henry Y.W. (2025). From Niche to Noticed: Helen Wang and the Networks Bringing Chinese Children’s Books to an English Readership. Children’s Literature in Education https://doi.org/10.1007/s10583-025-09648-5 – link

Xu Derong and Jin Weijie (2026). A Study on the Overseas Rewriting of Chinese Children’s Literature—Taking the Chinese Children’ s Classic Ma Liang and His Magic Brush as an Example. Journal of Foreign Languages, 2026, 49(1): 89-99. – link

Xu Derong and Li Xiaoli (2026). The Recreation of Literariness in the English Translation of Chinese Animal Fiction. Language Education 14(1). – link

Yuan, Anxue (2026). Ecolinguistic perspectives on multimodal metaphors: a comparative analysis of Chinese and American children’s climate change picture books, Language Sciences 114, 101791. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2025.101791 – link