Austin illustrator embraces being "too much" in new children's book
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Illustrator Angela Pan Wong. Photo: Courtesy of Third State Books
We caught up this week with Angela Pan Wong, an artist and illustrator based in Austin.
- A Taiwanese American, she has a BFA in design from the University of Texas and an MA in learning, design and technology from Stanford.
Driving the news: Wong will appear at BookPeople on Sunday at 4pm to talk about "Too Much Tony," the new children's book — words by Jenny Wang, also a UT graduate — that she illustrated.
- Tony is always told he's too much — too curious, too messy, too loud. He learns through a friendship that might not be a bad thing.
How did your background inform the project?
"Children of color as protagonists are a minority in books being published today, and it was important for us to represent a child of our background in the story. It's not mentioned in text, but there's a mythological creature in Tony's imaginative world that's a sort of Asian unicorn — a qilin."
"Too much" of something can implicitly extend to how people are characterized by their race or background, right?
"Asian American women are sometimes labeled as too loud, too opinionated— or too shy, and the message we really want to convey is that can be a strength in certain contexts."
What's the audience for this book?
"Definitely anybody who maybe has not fit in in a particular place or situation, who's been called too loud, or too emotional or too shy."