Minnie Phan and Viet Thanh Nguyen
A Conversation with Viet Thanh Nguyen on Climate Change
by Minnie Phan
Simone (Astra, 2024) came into being through an unusual process, for a picture book. First, I created a “sketch dummy” of the story, with only pictures, no words. Then, Viet added words and it became a true collaborative creative project.
The idea for Simone emerged during the uncertainty of 2020. In the Bay Area, the year began with the COVID-19 outbreak shutting down schools and businesses. Then, the August Complex fires caused the air to become toxic and for homes to be evacuated. For 24 hours on September 9th, the sky turned hauntingly orange. The world felt like it was coming to an end.
To soothe myself, I turned my attention to art and creativity. Making art was a safe place for me to go; my door into and away from the world.
These thoughts were on my mind while creating Simone. I wondered how children were dealing with everything going on in 2020. I thought about how important art was to me as a child who oftentimes felt powerless in the world. Through Simone, I wanted to say to children, “Hey, you’re not alone”.
When I approached Pulitzer Prize-winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen with my idea, he received it with excitement. He thought it was great in the way that the best children’s stories are: simple and elegant, and yet with the potential to have lots of meaning layered under the surface. He wrote Simone like a movie script, trusting that I as an illustrator would evoke the emotion of his words through gestures, expressions, or movements of our characters.
Simone was also inspired by our experiences as Vietnamese Americans living in wildfire-prone California.
In 2020, wildfires burned 4.2 million acres of land in California, where we both live. Over 18,000 brave firefighters protected us from these fires. Some were incarcerated people working for less than $6 a day.
In our book, Simone is awakened by her mom as a wildfire threatens their home. Within Simone, there’s a back story of Má’s childhood experiences in Viet Nam, when her family must leave their home because of a flood.
Viet knew that there had been severe flooding in the Mekong Delta at one point, and flooding is a periodic danger throughout Viet Nam. Flooding also came to mind because water is an important contrast to fire, and the play between fire and water is a significant theme in the story. That contrast matches the contrast between generations, Simone’s and Má’s, who are yet linked by climate catastrophes and forced flights.
Some people find it hard to talk about topics like natural disasters and displacement with children. We hope Simone can help start conversations.
Viet believes children are perfectly capable of discussing some very serious things. On a recent call he shared, “We read stories to children about a big bad wolf displacing three little pigs and rendering them homeless and threatening to eat them but we can’t discuss wildfires? I think books like Simone, with its child’s view of the immense world, can help children and adults begin conversations about climate change.”
Simone is an adventure story about a young hero facing an immense obstacle that she has to confront, and our ambition is that young readers will respond strongly and see themselves in the story. This little girl, Simone, faces an enormous obstacle, wildfires, and in the story we stuck closely to her perspective and herself. Once we knew who she was–small in stature but big in imagination–we could see the world through her eyes.
Explore Minnie Phan’s author page on TeachingBooks
Explore Viet Thanh Nguyen’s author page on TeachingBooks
Text and images are courtesy of Minnie Phan and Viet Thanh Nguyen and may not be used without express written consent.
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