It goes without saying that all children believe their parents to be strange. Mine were unusual for a different reason…
One boy’s parents travel from far-off lands to improve their son’s life. But what happens next is unexpected. What does it mean when your parents are different? What shape does love take? And what happens when your parents sacrifice a part of themselves for you?
In this heartbreaking and heart-warming story, CBCA award-winner Zeno Sworder reflects on his own migrant parents’ sacrifices to create a universal story about what it means to give to those you love. Drawing from the sacrifices his Chinese mother made to raise her young family in a small country town, Sworder’s drawings are full of beautiful detail and fairytale settings that explore his own journey from child to parent.
With humour and pathos, Sworder reflects on the strange nature of giving and receiving love and celebrates those parents who embrace a hard life for themselves in the hope of a better life for their children. Full of depth and generosity as well as insight and candour, Sworder brings this gorgeous fable to life.
Sworder is a true artist. Two books into his career, I feel we are witnessing the burgeoning of one of Australia’s great author-illustrators. His first book, This Small Blue Dot, won the CBCA’s Best New Illustrator 2021. His follow-up, My Strange Shrinking Parents, has taken out the CBCA’s Picture Book of the Year 2023, and it’s a well-deserved recognition!
As we have come to expect from Sworder, My Strange Shrinking Parents is absolutely visually stunning. Every page is a work of art – a breathtaking landscape; a complete world in miniature for readers to pore over. The colour and texture of each image are so far beyond what you would expect from your average picture book.
Matching the illustrations in beauty and emotional weight is Sworder’s spare, exacting prose, which tells a story of intergenerational love and sacrifice that will leave its readers forever changed. This book is extra special for the way it speaks directly to the experiences of children of migrants, as well as migrant parents themselves. But in its specificity, the book also speaks volumes of universal truth that will change how you see your familial relationships, no matter your background.
This moving reading experience is as much for grown-ups as it is for kids. Share it with your little ones, ages 4+, and be prepared to be dabbing your eyes by the end.
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