This study explores food-centered picture books’ creative practice and how it can be a pedagogical tool for supporting children’s cultural identity in immigrant contexts, through my multi-perspectives as a picture book author/illustrator, a mother of three young children, and a Master of Art Education candidate at NSCAD University, Canada. Based on my published books Bean Pod, Boom! and Tuanzi’s Festival and Food, this study considers artistic choices, shared reading experiences worked together with educational practice. In these works, I use playful devices and visual narratives such as anthropomorphized soybeans, scenes of a child cooking with her mother, and colorful illustrations of traditional dishes to bring Chinese food culture and customs to life for young readers. Through reading these books with my children while living abroad, I observed how the stories and images evoked their memories of food, family traditions, and language. These experiences also strengthened their self-confidence, as they recognized their family cuisines within a book, transforming reading into a joyful reflection on questions such as “Who am I?” and “Where do I come from?” Framed by arts-based research and reader-response theory, this study highlights how creative storytelling techniques work and how these books support young readers in intercultural contexts. It argues that food-themed picture books can serve as both imaginative storytelling and pedagogical material, bridging heritage traditions and diasporic childhoods while fostering children’s sense of identity and belonging.

Authors:
Yawen Zhou, NSCAD University, Canada

About the Presenter(s)
Yawen Zhou, Master of Art Education candidate at NSCAD University, is a children’s book author, illustrator, and painter. She has published over a dozen titles, exhibited work internationally.

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