lunartale
A thrilling Lunar New Year–inspired board book adventure with pages to peek through and gatefolds to open!
The Abrams Trail Tale series takes readers on unforgettable holiday-themed adventures. This new tale, written and illustrated by Stella Hong, follows a brother and sister on their way to Grandma’s house to celebrate Lunar New Year. Protected and guided by the 12 magical animals of the Zodiac, they’ll travel through the city into a vast tea garden, a serene bamboo grove, and across an ancient stone bridge to gather special treats for their big, celebratory family dinner. Young readers will delight in the clever die-cut surprises throughout and the dramatic quadruple gatefold at the end that reveals a special, festive surprise complete with dragon dancers and fireworks. Look for the 12 Zodiac animals throughout the book: rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog, and pig.
Publisher: Abrams Books
Every project starts with sketches! I decided to base the main characters off my younger brother and I and to portray an experience of the celebration that was authentic to me.
This was my first author-illustrator book so coming up with a manuscript and getting that to align with the illustrations was the fiddliest part of the project! I knew I wanted to incorporate the 12 Chinese zodiac signs/animals as I thought it would be so fun to have them throughout the story and also to follow their order, based on the ancient river race story.
Once the sketches with all the diecuts and flip out pages laid out felt solid, then came the colouring stage. This was my favourite part as being able to choose my own colour palettes was truly a blessing and was playing around with solid graphic shapes. I finished off the illustrations with pencil/crayon textures to add depth on top.
