Finding One’s Voice: A Guest Post by Xin Li
Congratulations to the Picture Book Winner of our 2024 B&N Children’s and YA Book Awards! In her exclusive essay below, Xin Li describes her time writing and illustrating her debut book and the way it came to life during the pandemic. Here’s Xin, in her own words.
Hardcover
$17.99
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I Lived Inside a Whale (B&N Exclusive Edition)
I Lived Inside a Whale (B&N Exclusive Edition)
By Xin Li
In Stock Online
Hardcover
$17.99
$19.99
Gorgeous and inspiring, this is the heartwarming story of a little girl in search of silence and the lessons she learns when she finds it. With fantastical illustrations and characters you’ll want to spend more time with, this is a story for all ages.
Gorgeous and inspiring, this is the heartwarming story of a little girl in search of silence and the lessons she learns when she finds it. With fantastical illustrations and characters you’ll want to spend more time with, this is a story for all ages.
In 2012, while working as a designer with UNICEF Uganda in Kampala, my husband, who was visiting on vacation, stumbled upon a spoken word poetry event at a local café. Intrigued, I joined him, stepping into a world of live poetry performance for the first time—a raw, emotional experience that left a deep impression on me.
Years later, as I read Where the Wild Things Are to my newborn daughter, I found myself imagining performing a poem on stage. Remembering how the poets in Kampala used music and performance to captivate the audience, I sang through the wordless wild rumpus pages, making my baby girl giggle with joy.
Reading to my child has shown me that picture books share the same essence as spoken word poetry: both are meant to be read aloud, to be performed.
Fast forward to early 2021, amidst the chaos of juggling freelance illustration work and motherhood during a global pandemic, I turned to writing as a coping mechanism. I wrote the first draft of I Lived Inside a Whale as a poem, as I looked for inspiration in spoken word poetry. I recall reciting the verses aloud over and over, feeling the beats and the musicality of words.
While I Lived Inside a Whale isn’t a biographical story, many ingredients are rooted in my own experiences. The protagonist, Emma’s, longing for solace perhaps mirrors my own mindset during the early days of the pandemic.
Similar to how Emma and Owen’s friendship blossomed through storytelling in my book, our mixed-race family was also built upon the love of sharing stories. When my Norwegian husband and I first started dating, he would read me his childhood favorite fictions as bedtime stories—from The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings to the Earthsea Cycle. Sharing stories has played a crucial role in helping us understand each other’s childhoods, upbringings, and worldviews.
As we welcomed our daughter into the world in Norway, I in turn used Chinese fairy tales and stories from my life in China to provide her the cultural references from my heritage.
I Lived Inside a Whale unexpectedly touched upon the theme of finding one’s voice, a reflection perhaps of my own inner struggles at the time when I was working on the book. As an inexperienced illustrator, I grappled with insecurities about my artistic voice—what stories to tell and how to carve a place for my art in this chaotic world full of visual noise.
Embedded within my narrative are many visual details drawn from my own experiences: the bustling street reminiscent of our former apartment in Oslo’s city center, Emma’s elbow patch echoing my university English teacher’s jacket, and the giraffe toy, a cherished Christmas gift from my brother-in-law. By infusing these personal touches into the story, I hope they add an authentic layer that resonates with readers, making the tale feel genuine and relatable.”
