OneRedFlower Press’s first picture book is now available at Kinokuniya and Borders (Klang Valley) and Amazon.com.
Publishing editor, Daphne Lee wrote about her experience editing the book in her column in StarMag:
“When I was first shown Emila’s mock-up of My Mother’s Garden, the little girl in it was dressed in jeans and a sweater. I asked Emila to dress her in a baju kurung instead, to better reflect the fact that she is a little Malaysian girl – the flowers and other plants in the garden show the local setting of the story. I didn’t think the girl would look odd in a baju kurung as many little Malay girls still wear this outfit. And also, Malaysian girls and women of all races do too, including as a school uniform.
“Textwise, Emila had written a simple narrative, but also composed rhyming verses for every picture spread. It is very hard to rhyme well. Unless you’re very good at it, there’s a danger that your text will end up sounding forced, clumsy or just plain cheesy. And so I removed the rhyming text, and Emila and I worked to improve the narrative, adding more descriptive details to the text. However, as I felt that the flowers and the little girl’s appearance were enough to give this book a thoroughly Malaysian feel, I refrained from adding any pointedly Malaysian references within the narrative. However, the book ends with an illustrated glossary of the flowers and plants, with their English and Malay names.
“My Mother’s Garden suffers from a slight oversight in that its spine doesn’t bear its title. This will make it hard to pick out when it’s sitting spine-out on bookshelves. Well, as Linda said to me, let’s hope it goes into second printing so we can add the title then!” ~ From Tots to Teens, StarMag, 16th Mat, 2010.
The piece appears in full on Daphne’s blog The Places You Will Go.
To find out more about the author/illustrator, Emila Yusof, visit her blog.
