Client: Roaring Brook Press
Category: Children's literature

Published in April 2025 from Roaring Brook Press.

In this life-affirming picture book, acclaimed author Christopher Cheng weaves the true story of his family’s search for safety in the midst of war, demonstrating the strength of children in the face of the impossible.

Young Shu Lok didn’t know there was a war until it appeared on his doorstep.

Overnight, everything changes. His parents send him away, tucking him into a basket alongside his cousins to be carried to safety.

They travel in search of a place the war does not reach, over cloud-wreathed clifftops, and through cold, hungry nights where a rocky bed and cold bean curd cake are all that await him.

But Shu Lok comes to find that war does not define him. He remembers his parents’ words: be powerful like a dragon. Even if food and comfort are scarce, strength, resilience, and kindness can always be found. Even in the harshest times, dragons can learn to fly.

Based on author Christopher Cheng’s true family story and with breathtaking, sweeping illustrations by Jacqueline Tam, Powerful Like a Dragon is an honest and heartfelt invitation into one child’s experience during the Imperial Japanese invasion of Hong Kong in 1941.

Category: Children’s literature

A personal series that follows the course of a little girl’s day dream and adventure on a warm spring day.

Category: Children's literature

Category: Children's literature

Explorations of a moonbeam’s adventures under the sea

Category: Children’s literature

A night scene of a constellation twinkling over the observatories on Mauna Kea.

Selected illustrations from The Healer, a short story I wrote and illustrated about a dying king and a traveler who attempts to heal him.