Hi, my name is Gigi and I’m the new Art Director at Tundra Books. I’m originally from Vancouver and come from a chatty media-intense family: my parents ran the city’s first Chinese-language radio station with my father hosting live interviews and news shows and my mother as his producer, my sister is a journalist and digital news leader at CBC, while I was the introvert focused on visual storytelling and graphic communications.
I love working with creatives across all media and have been lucky to collaborate with so many from all backgrounds throughout my 16 years in publishing. Pure thrill is opening my email to find sketches and final art from artists! Previously, I was Art Director at HTP Books, designing and art directing books across six imprints including YA and MG titles.
I live in Toronto with my husband and two kids. I picked up cycling over the pandemic as a mental health escape and am pushing myself at how far I can go by bike, this year’s longest ride was 140km. Now my must-do when visiting new cities is to explore a city by bike – you can see so much more!
Photo credit: Kristin Lewis
5 Random Facts About Me
- I have over 20 cousins.
- I love to indoor rock climb.
- I’m a tea drinker (and only Earl Grey) even though I worked in coffee shops in high school and university.
- My hands have been photographed for two romance book covers. I retired from amateur hand modelling after there was feedback that my hands looked like kids’ hands.
- I can’t watch horror films.
Favorite Penguin Random House Titles
Ten Little Dumplings
By Larissa Fan
Illustrated by Cindy Wume
48 Pages | Ages 4-8 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735266193 | Tundra Books
In the city of Tainan, there lives a very special family – special because they have ten sons who do everything together. Their parents call them their ten little dumplings, as both sons and dumplings are auspicious. But if you look closely, you’ll see that someone else is there, listening, studying, learning and discovering her own talent – a sister. As this little girl grows up in the shadow of her brothers, her determination and persistence help her to create her own path in the world . . . and becomes the wisdom she passes on to her own daughter, her own little dumpling. Based on a short film made by the author, inspired by her father’s family in Taiwan, Ten Little Dumplings looks at some unhappy truths about the place of girls in our world in an accessible, inspiring and hopeful way.
Story Boat
By Kyo Maclear
Illustrated by Rashin Kheiriyeh
40 Pages | Ages 3-7 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735263598 | Tundra Books
When a little girl and her younger brother are forced along with their family to flee the home they’ve always known, they must learn to make a new home for themselves – wherever they are. And sometimes the smallest things – a cup, a blanket, a lamp, a flower, a story – can become a port of hope in a terrible storm. As the refugees travel onward toward an uncertain future, they are buoyed up by their hopes, dreams and the stories they tell – a story that will carry them perpetually forward.
Time Is a Flower
By Julie Morstad
56 Pages | Ages 3-7 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735267541 | Tundra Books
What is time? Is it the tick tick tock of a clock, numbers and words on a calendar? It’s that, but so much more. Time is a seed waiting to grow, a flower blooming, a sunbeam moving across a room. Time is slow like a spider spinning her web or fast like a wave at the beach. Time is a wiggly tooth, or waiting for the school bell to ring, or reading a story . . . or three! But time is also morning for some and night for others, a fading sunset and a memory captured in a photo taken long ago. In this magical meditation on the nature of time, Julie Morstad shines a joyful light on a difficult-to-grasp concept for young readers and reminds older readers to see the wonders of our world, including children themselves, through the lens of time.
The Barren Grounds: The Misewa Saga #1
By David A. Robertson
256 Pages | Ages 10+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735266100 | Puffin Canada
Morgan and Eli, two Indigenous children forced away from their families and communities, are brought together in a foster home in Winnipeg, Manitoba. They each feel disconnected, from their culture and each other, and struggle to fit in at school and at their new home – until they find a secret place, walled off in an unfinished attic bedroom. A portal opens to another reality, AskÃ, bringing them onto frozen, barren grounds, where they meet Ochek (Fisher). The only hunter supporting his starving community, Misewa, Ochek welcomes the human children, teaching them traditional ways to survive. But as the need for food becomes desperate, they embark on a dangerous mission. Accompanied by Arik, a sassy Squirrel they catch stealing from the trapline, they try to save Misewa before the icy grip of winter freezes everything – including them.
Iron Widow
By Xiran Jay Zhao
400 Pages | Ages 14+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735269934 | Penguin Teen Canada
Release Date: September 21, 2021
The boys of Huaxia dream of pairing up with girls to pilot Chrysalises, giant transforming robots that can battle the mecha aliens that lurk beyond the Great Wall. It doesn’t matter that the girls often die from the mental strain. When 18-year-old Zetian offers herself up as a concubine-pilot, it’s to assassinate the ace male pilot responsible for her sister’s death. But she gets her vengeance in a way nobody expected – she kills him through the psychic link between pilots and emerges from the cockpit unscathed. She is labeled an Iron Widow, a much-feared and much-silenced kind of female pilot who can sacrifice boys to power up Chrysalises instead.​ To tame her unnerving yet invaluable mental strength, she is paired up with Li Shimin, the strongest and most controversial male pilot in Huaxia​. But now that Zetian has had a taste of power, she will not cower so easily. She will miss no opportunity to leverage their combined might and infamy to survive attempt after attempt on her life, until she can figure out exactly why the pilot system works in its misogynist way – and stop more girls from being sacrificed.
Favorite Non Penguin Random House Titles
- My Day with Gong Gong by Sennah Yee and Elaine Chen
- Pas Moi by Elise Gravel (somehow it’s funnier in French??)
- Love by Vanni
- Griffin & Sabine by Nick Bantock
Anticipated Penguin Random House Titles
- Dim Sum Palace by X. Fang
- The Song That Called Them Home by David A. Robertson and Maya McKibbin
- The Only Way to Make Bread by Cristina Quintero and Sarah Gonzales