TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A Taiwanese language children’s book was included in a prestigious international reading list.
The picture book “Hide and Seek” (覕相揣) which was written in Taiwanese was included in the German’s White Ravens 2023 list. The list highlights outstanding new releases in international children’s and youth literature.
The book’s title is the Taiwanese language name for the game hide and seek, CNA reported. Taiwanese or Taigi is a variant of Hokkien Chinese spoken in Taiwan.
The White Ravens list consists of 200 titles in around 40 languages and from more than 50 countries. Successful entries are selected annually by the children’s literature experts of Germany’s International Youth Library (IYL) and featured in the annotated English-language catalog.
Books selected for inclusion are deemed to feature innovative styles and resonating stories. The IYL describes the list as a treasure trove for literary discoveries and a compass through the vast children’s book market for publishers, libraries, literary festivals, international bookstores, and agencies.
As a Taiwanese language edition, “Hide and Seek” is a rare selection. Taiwanese is spoken by around 70% of Taiwanese people, but the country’s official language is Mandarin.
“Hide and Seek” was produced by the National Taiwan Museum (NTM) and the illustrator Tsou Chun-sheng (鄒駿昇). It depicts a 150-year-long search for the elusive Formosan Clouded Leopard.
150 years ago, Robert Swinhoe, a British consul in Taiwan, acquired pieces of animal hide with cloud-like markings. Swinhoe, who was famously passionate about ecological research became fascinated by the animal which he identified as a Formosan Clouded Leopard.
He had Joseph Wolf produce a drawing of the cat in 1862. The illustration has become a key part of Taiwan’s heritage.
Joseph Wolf’s 1862 illustration
More recently in the early 1990s, Chiang Po-jen (姜博仁), a consultant at Taiwan’s Formosan Wild Sound Conservation Science Center, set out with a team to search in Dawan mountains for the cloud-coated cat. They installed automatic cameras deep within the forests but returned empty-handed.
Chiang gave up his search in 2013.
“Hide and Seek” uses Tsou’s illustrations, drawings of species collected by Swinhoe, and Chiang’s investigative work to present a record of exploration in natural history across different eras. It conveys the NTM’s concern about environmental changes in Taiwan.
‘Hide and Seek’ was not the only Taiwanese work to make it onto the White Ravens 2023 list. Chi Wei’s “The Animal Whisperer” (牛言蜚語) and Yu Hsiao-Lu’s “Somewhere” (Somewhere好地方) were also included.
