Not so long ago, I stumbled upon the ancient Sumerian flood story. Discovering a tale so strikingly similar to—yet far older than—the story of Noah fascinated me. It sustained my curiosity about origin stories, and continued a chain reaction that ultimately led me to create my very own picture book.
Time to read:
Table of Contents
Fairy Tales from Childhood
Growing up as a child, I loved reading illustrated storybooks. However, almost all of them were fairy tales imported from Europe. There were no books available to me that told the stories of my own people.
Still, as I grew older, I found deep fascination in reading folk tales from neighboring ethnic groups, including the precolonial creation myths of the Visayas.
Then came a turning point: I came across a collection of Philippine folktales and was stunned to discover a story from the Mandaya. It was an absolute revelation. I had no idea that my own ethnic group had a creation story of its own, let alone that it had been preserved.
At the time, I was preoccupied with web development, working on a project that demanded deep attention. I had to ask myself: Was it worth putting my website on the backseat just to make a picture book?
On to a Children’s Picture Book
Yet the compulsion was simply too strong to ignore. I decided I was going to make the picture book anyway.
And I made it for children. I had spent my childhood reading European fairy tales, and I thought, shouldn’t I have been reading the stories of my own heritage? I wanted to start a change for the next generation. I set out to create a book that would allow children of my ethnic group to enjoy their own stories.
So I drafted the story, composited the images, and assembled the layout. Eventually, I finished composing the book—or so I thought.
Finishing a Picture Book for Kids
Creating a picture book proved far trickier than I anticipated. Pairing text and images seamlessly was a constant challenge. I made plenty of mistakes, and the process took much longer than planned. What I originally expected to complete in just a few days stretched into over a month of grueling work.
Doubt crept in. Should I just drop this project? Or just release it as-is, without worrying about whether I made it as well as I could?
Despite the frustration, I toiled on. Every morning after breakfast, I sat down to work. Whenever I caught another mistake, I corrected it and redid the work until it was right. I kept refining the project until, finally, it was complete.
That process produced Sun, Moon and the Giant Crab—the very first picture book I ever made. Click the button below to check it.
See Picture Book
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