Adam R. Chang and Stephanie Wildman are the authors of the new children's picture book Miri's Moving Day. Chang is also the owner of a home and garden business. Wildman's other books include Ghost Writer. She is a professor emerita at Santa Clara University's School of Law.
Q: What inspired you to write Miri’s Moving Day?
A: We drew on our personal lived experiences. Stephanie is a grandmother to two Chinese American Jewish boys. And Adam grew up with his grandparents as his primary caregivers.
Miri’s Moving Day evolved out of a champagne rejection for another book we wrote with a Chinese American Jewish boy and his two grandmothers. We decided to flip the script, imagining a Chinese American Jewish girl and her two grandfathers.
We imagined what her story might be and it turned out she was moving from the only home she had ever known, living with her Chinese American grandparents and her parents. Moving can be stressful for everyone - it epitomizes change.
Q: How did the two of you collaborate on the book? What was your writing process like?
A: We meet regularly to write, usually on Facetime when we are both at computers, in a shared Google Document. Sometimes we each write and combine text we have composed. And sometimes we are finishing each other's sentences.
Q: What do you think Dream Chen’s illustrations add to the story?
A: The book is a message about positive change and how our attachments (particularly familial cultural ones) can evolve with us.
Dream’s illustration with Miri looking out the window as she drives to her new home, seeing all the wonders of her new neighborhood, from the bookstore to the children playing, embodies the feeling of hope and excitement that was building in Miri as her feelings transform from dismay to excitement.
For a lot of our young readers, Dream’s illustrations also provide an introduction to cultural artifacts. Seeing Miri and her family brought to life was so wonderful.
Q: What do you hope kids take away from the book?
A: Empathy. Change can be scary. We hope readers will see the potential for positivity in change as well as feeling the concerns that might accompany it.
We also want our readers to see themselves reflected in Miri, whether or not the reader comes from an immigrant background, lives in a multigenerational household, or is mixed-race.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: We loved Miri so much that we were unwilling to let her go, so we wrote a story about a grown-up Miri, heading off to college. You can read it here, in the Kar-Ben Publishing blog. We also have created educational resources for Miri that you can find on the Kar-Ben website, here. It includes a word search game!
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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