Written by Songju Daemicke – Illustrated by Jam Dong – Published by Barefoot Books

Guess what, dear friends? It’s Board Book Saturday! And I’m sharing one of the new Barefoot Books Our World series.
Have you noticed that board books often come in a series…sometimes the author pitches the series. Sometimes the author submits one story, but the publisher asks for a companion. And sometimes, as with this Our World series, the publisher approached people to create specific titles. There are books in this series that center on culture in Japan, Mexico, Brazil, India, France, and many other countries. Each book follows a similar format…a day in the life of a young child…with various activities and foods that are authentic to that culture – plus simple vocabulary with definitions. It’s an engaging and educational series – and each book provides mirrors and windows for the young book lovers.

Here’s a little bit about OUR WORLD CHINA from the Amazon sales page:
Hello, Nǐ hǎo! Let’s spend a day in China! Fly kites in the square, buy sweet lychee at the market and go paddle boating at the lake. Author Songju Ma Daemicke and illustrator Jam Dong draw on their personal experiences growing up in China to create this appealing board book as part of the Our World Series for very young readers.

And we are so very lucky because author Songju stopped by to give us a lovely peek into her process for writing this book.

SONGJU: Writing this board book was a lot of fun and also challenging at the same time. There were a few books in this series about other countries out already. I found that it often takes several tries to get everything just right, in terms of fitting in well with other books in the series and avoiding similarities in the words, action and ideas used.

Example: the last sentence of my One World: China book was:

1^st version:

The moon glides thru water lily clouds.    Mama sings me a lullaby. 晚安Wǎn’ān! This accurately reflected personal childhood memories of my mother, who loved singing songs to us. Unfortunately, there were already other books in this series using the word “lullaby”, so a change of my exact words was deemed necessary.  

2^nd version:

The moon glides through water lily clouds.   

Wǎn’ān* 晚安! Good night!

However, no one had heard of “water lily clouds” and felt that kids might not understand this. Also, another book apparently already had a reference to the “moon”. It was requested that the word “moon” be eliminated, even though we would show the moon in the illustration:

3^rd version:

White clouds drift like water lilies

A final issue: When the editors examined the proposed artwork for this page, the white color didn’t work well with actual illustration of the “white” moon. The color was changed to “silver”,  becoming the final wording:

4^th version & final version:

Silver clouds drift like water lilies.

Wǎn’ān* 晚安! Good night!

This worked for everyone! A lot of thinking goes into even the simplest texts! I am still very happy with the final flow of the words in the book and appreciative of the beautiful illustrations by Jam Dong.

SONGJU MA DAEMICKE, a former software engineer with Motorola, is an award-winning Chinese-American children’s book author. Her book, Tu Youyou’s Discovery – Finding a Cure for Malaria, is a finalist for the 2023 SB&F Prize for Excellence in Science Books; Cao Chong Weighs an Elephant was a Best STEM book, among many other honors. Songju loves taking her family to visit her siblings in China, practicing Tai Chi, flying kites, and eating all kinds of delicious dumplings.
Website: www.songjumadaemicke.com
Twitter: @SongjuDaemicke
Instagram: @SongjuDaemicke
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/songju.daemicke
Pre-order link:
Bookshop:    bit.ly/3KGBdi6
Amazon:       https://bit.ly/3zILOTp
Signed copies available at Barnes & Noble through mail order:  http://bit.ly/3ZUz06S

Illustrator information:
Jam Dong is an illustrator and picture book author, who has been recognized by many influential awards around the world. Her works have been selected by the Bologna Children’s Book Fair in 2020, 2021 and 2022. She was born and raised in Shanghai, China, and is currently based in Boston, USA.

Thank you all for stopping by and spending your precious time with us. Please make sure you leave a comment for a chance to win a copy of this beautiful board book, OUR WORLD CHINA. And please share the post on social media, leave a review, put it on your Goodreads WANT TO READ shelf, and ask your local library to purchase copies for their collection.