A grieving girl finds the ideal way to honor her late aunt in Charlene Chua’s The Pink Pajamas: A Story About Love and Loss, the second picture book Chua has both written and illustrated (after 2020’s Hug?). In the book, Ling Ling loves all the pajamas her aunt makes for her, but she can’t hide her disappointment when she’s given a pink pair—the last the woman makes, as it turns out, before she becomes too ill to sew. When she dies, the girl insists on wearing her pink pajamas to the funeral to honor her aunt, despite her mother’s objection.
Born and raised in Singapore, Chua moved to Canada in 2007, where they live in Hamilton, Ontario with their husband and beloved cats. Chua has illustrated multiple books written by other authors, including the Amy Woo series by Kat Zhang; Going Up! by Sherry J. Lee; and Love, Violet by Charlotte Sullivan Wild, a 2023 Stonewall Book Award winner. PW spoke with Chua about the evolution of their picture book career and most recent work.
Were you interested in art as a child, and what sparked your first foray into illustration—and then into children’s books?
I’ve liked drawing as far back as I can remember. When I was a kid, I drew animals, and later I drew comics. I think the first illustration I got paid to do was a small comic I created as a teen. My mother was writing for a local magazine at the time, and she came up with a short comic that I illustrated. My uncle was also an illustrator back in the day, and he paid me to help him airbrush a couple of pieces. Those were technically the first “professional” works I did, although after that I didn’t do anything until I decided to try illustration as a career when I was around 23.
The first picture book I did happened quite by accident. The author, Oliver Chin, and the publisher, Immedium, happened to see a magazine illustration I had done featuring a woman in a Bruce Lee-type yellow jumpsuit. Based on that, the author asked if I would be interested in illustrating a book about a Chinese American girl who wanted to learn kung fu. I thought it would be an interesting project, so I accepted, and that became my first book, Julie Black Belt: The Kung Fu Chronicles [2008].
Some years later, I was approached by Immedium to work on Fishing with Grandma [2016] by Susan Avingaq and Maren Vsetula, a picture book about an Inuit grandmother teaching ice fishing to her grandchildren. I agreed, and that led to several other projects. At that point, I thought I would like to keep working on books, as I really enjoyed that work compared to other kinds of illustration projects.
What piqued your interest in writing and illustrating your own books as well as creating art for other authors’ stories, and how does that solo endeavor involve different challenges—and rewards?
After illustrating several projects for Immedium, I signed with an agent, Tracy Marchini at BookEnds Literary, and part of my agreement with her was that she would represent any books I happen to write as well. I wasn’t really planning on writing many of my own stories, but over the years some have come up and I am glad I’ve been able to work together with Tracy to sell a couple of them.
In terms of the challenge of writing the text as well as creating the art, I find writing very hard, as often my brain goes, “Why do you need the words? Just look at the pictures!” Stories don’t come naturally to me, and they don’t often come fully formed from beginning to end. So, it’s a task to sit down and try to figure it out. It’s not like coming up with a drawing, when I can draw out 10 different ideas and pick the one that works the best. Writing is very challenging and draining for me, and much more upsetting when it doesn’t work out.
That said, though, it can be fulfilling to write and illustrate my own stories. It still feels strange to see only my name on the book cover, but I guess it feels rewarding because people still tend to value the author’s work more than the illustrator’s most of the time. So, when I’m the author too, there seems to be an added sense of legitimacy somehow.
What inspired the storyline and characters in The Pink Pajamas—did the book come from a personal place?
This book is based on a combination of my experience of my aunt’s relatively recent passing and my great-grandmother’s passing when I was a child. My aunt passed away from cancer some years ago in Singapore, and I was unable to return to see her or to attend the funeral. It is a bit of a surreal feeling to process the loss of someone separated by not just distance, but also time—we hadn’t spoken much since I migrated to Canada.
While I was thinking about her passing, I also recalled how I felt with my first experience with death, when my great-grandmother passed away when I was about six. That was also a surreal experience, and I think it had a lasting impact on me. I remember many new, strange things happening: Great Grandma in her coffin, the room stuffed with flowers, and relatives and friends I’d never seen before coming over to pay respects.
It wasn’t scary, but there wasn’t much guidance to explain what was going on or why, and I’ve always thought kids deserve better in this regard. Death is something that touches everyone at some point, and there is no real good reason to hide it from children. So, I wanted The Pink Pajamas to be a tribute to my aunt, but I also wanted it to be a way for children to be gently introduced to the concept of death and remembering those we have lost.
Can you share what’s on your creative agenda for the future?
Currently, I am finishing up a picture book, and then I have a couple more book projects to work on. I don’t have any new stories of my own that I have a big desire to develop at the moment, but you never know. Sometimes these things just suddenly take shape in my head, and then there’s a new project for my agent to shop around! I would like to work on books written by other authors, just because it’s easier for me and I do genuinely enjoy bringing other people’s stories to life. So someone—please—give me a book to illustrate featuring cats!
The Pink Pajamas: A Story About Love and Loss by Charlene Chua. S&S, $19.99 Aug. 5 ISBN 978-1-6659-4316-1
