If you ever moved as a kid, you know how Lily feels – sad to say goodbye, afraid to start anew and angry – yes, angry – at the unfairness of it all.
Lily is the spunky heroine of “This is Not My Home” the first children’s book from Eugenia Yoh, a 2022 communication design graduate of the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, and Vivienne Chang, an economics and strategy student at Olin Business School. At the book’s start she learns that she and her mother must leave their home in America to care for her grandmother in Taiwan. Lily does not like her new home — the strange food, the crowded market, the weird toilets.
“This is not my backyard barbecue. This is not our car, these aren’t my fireflies. This is not my home,” Lily tells her mother.
Through her mother’s love and patience, Lily finds her place. But it takes time.
“From the start, I wanted to make a book about a girl who is feeling raw and genuine anger,” Yoh said. “We tell the story against the cultural backdrop of Taiwan, a place that is very important to both of us. But any child who has had to move can see themselves in Lily.”