Vietnamese picture book honored in 2025 White Ravens list
VOV.VN - Vietnamese picture book Dạo bước với Thời Gian (Walking With Time) by Quynh Huong, also known as Hu, has been included in the 2025 White Ravens list, an internationally renowned annual catalogue that highlights the best in children’s and young adult literature.
According to The White Ravens, the book tells the story of four stone dog figurines that come to life on a dresser and follow the first-person narrator and a plant called “Time” on a walk through the four seasons. The dogs observe peach blossoms drenched in spring rain, notice shirts soaked with summer sweat, and witness the blooming of a pomegranate in autumn. They realise that spring is about to return when the frangipani branches bloom in late winter. As the eternal cycle of life begins again, the dogs turn back into stone.
According to the website, the elegiac poem weaves together symbol-filled depictions of Vietnam’s nature, art, crafts, and architecture, creating the sensation of viewing a series of colourful still lifes.
“This first picture book by publisher-author Hu and illustrator Maru aims to introduce children to the challenging concepts of time and the transience of life,” it noted.
The book has recently been acquired by Major Books, a UK-based publishing house dedicated to translating and promoting Vietnamese literature internationally. Its English edition is scheduled for release in spring 2026. Publishing rights have also been sold to a publisher in the Republic of Korea (RoK), while negotiations are underway with a partner in Indonesia.
Author Quynh Huong has also presented Walking With Time at literary and reading culture events in the Republic of Korea and India.
Each year, The White Ravens list, compiled by children’s literature experts of the International Youth Library, features about 200 outstanding new releases from around 50 countries in roughly 40 languages. The selected titles are presented in an annotated English-language catalogue.
In previous years, several works by Vietnamese authors and illustrators have also been featured in The White Ravens, including Ba tớ là runner (My Dad is a Runner) by Bui Phuong Tam – Jeet Dzung, Mẹ yêu ai nhất (Who Does Mom Love the Most?) by Huynh Mai Lien – XLan, Sớm mai (Early Morning) by Truong My Dung – Nguyen Thi Ngoc Bich, and Cái Tết của mèo con (The Kitten’s Tet) by Nguyen Dinh Thi.
International Youth Library honours Vietnamese children’s book
VOV.VN - The Vietnamese book "Ba tớ là runner" (“My daddy is a runner”) has been named among the list of world’s most interesting books in The White Ravens 2024 catalogue, as announced by the International Youth Library.
