Picture Book Month Book Review: HOW THIS BOOK GOT RED by Margaret Chiu Greanias

Title: How This Book Got Red

Author: Margaret Chiu Greanias

Illustrator: Melissa Iwai

Publisher/Year: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky/2023

Favorite Line from the Book: “This will be better than bamboo bubble tea!” ~Red

What’s the first thing that pops into your head when you think about a panda? Probably the lovable, ever-popular black and white panda bear, right? That would be true for me, too, if my local zoo didn’t have red pandas. Red pandas are small, tree-dwelling mammals native to the forests of the Himalayas, Nepal, Tibet, Bhutan, and China. They have the fluffiest tails ever and are just so cute. They’re also endangered due to habitat loss and poaching, so I’m thankful that my zoo is dedicated to their conservation.

I was thrilled to hear about Margaret Chiu Greanias’s new picture book How This Book Got Red, which stars a red panda named Red and her best friend Gee, a giant panda. One day, Red and Gee settle down together to read a book about pandas, but the only pandas in the book, and in the books at the bookstore, are the black and white ones. Upset by this realization, Red endeavors to write her own book all about red pandas. But she struggles to get her words down on paper and complete her book. She thinks, if there are no books about red pandas, it must be because no one wants to read about them. But she soon learns that’s not the case at all. And with a little help from Gee, she finishes writing her book, and it becomes a great success.

On the surface, How This Book Got Red is a sweet picture book about a red panda who decides to write a book about red pandas. But there’s a deeper layer to this story. Representation. Margaret Chiu Greanias, the daughter of Taiwanese immigrants, says, “Like Red, the main character in How This Book Got Red, I didn’t see myself in books when I was growing up.” She goes on to say, “I grew up feeling less than others. When I looked in the mirror, I saw someone who didn’t match my idea of pretty and never would.” Margaret says she didn’t value who she was because people who looked like her were not represented in the books she read. She believes “that the more everyone understands how the lack of representation affects those rendered invisible, the less children will grow up feeling the way I did.” In a starred review, Kirkus Reviews said: “Greanias illustrates perfectly, in a way that children will intuitively understand, why it’s so crucial for everyone to see themselves depicted in media…”

A secondary layer in the book reflects a struggle that most writers will connect with: Trying to write when the words just won’t come. Believing you have nothing of value to say, nothing that anyone’s going to want to read. Taking a chance and pouring yourself onto the page and then sending your work out into the world with a deep breath in your lungs and hope in your heart. Yep, I certainly can relate to that.

The illustrations, by Melissa Iwai, created using watercolors, colored pencils, and digital tools, are charming, colorful, and clearly done by a talented artist who has the skills and experience to bring personality to Red, Gee, and all their panda pals. Red is just so endearing! ❤️ As a bonus, readers will find a few facts about real red pandas on the front and back endpapers.

Most people recognize the black and white panda, but I think there should totally be more books about red pandas. If you’ve ever seen one in person, like I have, you know I’m right. They are Adorable with a capital A, just like this book. And something tells me that How This Book Got Red will inspire kids to be writers, hopefully, writing the kinds of stories they want to see, ones that represent them!

Tending Your Story Garden

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This article originally appeared last year on Operation Awesome as a guest post by me. I thought it was a good time to repost as a reminder to my writer friends to grab those ideas that are floating around in your minds, plant them, and grow them into beautiful stories for children.

Tending Your Story Garden

Before you can harvest your vegetables, you must plant the seeds, water the seedlings, nourish the soil, and have patience. Without tending, your garden will wither and die. Stories are gardens grown from the seeds of ideas, watered with love, and nourished with knowledge. Just like a vegetable garden, your story garden must be tended so that, in time, it will fill up with a cornucopia of plump and tasty tales.

Every story starts with an idea seed that has formed in our minds. When we choose to take that idea and put it down on paper or computer screen, we’ve planted the seed that has the potential to bloom into a beautiful story.

Each story is a garden of its own that began as an idea seed, or more likely, multiple seeds from which tiny seedlings, or idea-lings, have sprung forth. Once the idea-lings have sprouted, it’s time to nurture them. If we don’t, our story will never come to fruition.

Water with love. If you don’t believe in your story, it will show in your writing, which will be flat and lifeless. Most likely, you will abandon it and it will wither away. Always begin with an idea that excites you, then you’ll shower your story with your heart and soul and it will flourish.

Nourish with knowledge. Just as gardeners use hoes, rakes, and fertilizer to tend their gardens, writers should arm themselves with the right tools. I don’t mean paper, pencils, and laptops. No matter what kind of story you write, or what audience you’re writing for, boost your writing skills through education, research, and practice. If you polish your skills, your story will shine.

Weed with purpose. In a garden, weeds can spread quickly. They take over and suffocate the crops. Stories can have weeds too. Too much description, unnecessary words, passive voice, poor pacing, bland dialogue, and a thin plot are weeds that overshadow and choke out your characters, action, and theme, all the things that give life to your story . Once you’ve completed your first draft, go back and edit it. Weed out everything that bogs your story down and keeps it from blossoming.

Self-doubt is the worst weed of all. It’s a force as destructive to your story as a hail storm is to a fragile flower garden. We all hear that negative voice coming from deep inside that tells us our writing is not good enough. Grab hold of it and yank it out by the roots. If you write about things that interest you, practice your writing skills, edit your work, and persevere, your stories will be better than just good enough; they’ll be dazzling, just like that prize-winning giant pumpkin at the county fair.