Quick Summary
"Where We Come From" was chosen for the 13th iteration of Minnesota’s state-wide book club, One Book | One Minnesota. This title presents a picture-book collaboration in which four authors explore where they each come from, literally and metaphorically. Sun Yung Shin is one of four co-authors. Sun is an award-winning poet whose work has earned honors such as the Midland Authors Society Award for Poetry, the Minnesota Book Award, and the Asian American Literary Award, with additional recognition as a finalist for the PEN USA Literary Award and multiple Minnesota Book Awards.
What was the most rewarding part of writing this book?
It's impossible to pick one! I'll second what John Coy said, and I'll add that watching our illustrator, Dion MBD, develop his illustrations was fascinating and awe-inspiring.
What were some of the challenges you encountered while writing, and how did you overcome them?
I'll say that one challenge of writing picture books, including this one, is working to include words that will evoke a variety of images for our illustrator– images that will engage young readers. With this book, I wanted to include scenes from Korean history, including early immigration to the US, that I haven't seen in other children's books.
What do you hope readers take away from your book, and what impact do you envision it having in your community?
I hope readers take away permission to feel whole even if they don't know or cannot know all of their own history, whether it's because of collective or personal erasures and trauma, such as captivity, enslavement, genocide, racism, historical and institutional neglect, abandonment, separation, adoption, or any other ruptures that cause people to be severed from their stories and their past. I hope readers know that regardless of what they do or don't know about their own history, or their own families, that they (we) are all part of this incredible web of life and evolution and change going back billions of years. Every child is part of something bigger and we have more in common than not. Every person has a responsibility to help children, the next generations, understand the history of the land and people where they live, so they can make informed and communal choices toward a world of repair and regeneration.
What book are you currently reading?
Unlike John, I am not in Italy! One of the books I am reading is “Bad Law: Ten Popular Laws That Are Ruining America,” by Elie Ying Mystal. "In “Bad Law,” the New York Times bestselling author of “Allow Me To Retort: A Black Guy’s Guide to the Constitution,” reimagines what our legal system, and society at large, could look like if we could move past legislation plagued by racism, misogyny, and corruption. Through accessible yet detailed prose and trenchant wit, Mystal argues that these egregiously awful laws—his “Bill of Wrongs”—continue to cause systematic and individual harm and should be repealed completely."
Read the Book
"Where We Come From" will be available from March 10 through May 5, via Ebooks Minnesota. Ebooks Minnesota's unlimited simultaneous use model makes it perfect for book clubs!
