Grace Lin

Grace Lin (born May 17, 1974, New Hartford, New York, U.S.) is an American author and illustrator of picture books, books for early readers, and middle-school novels. Lin often includes aspects of Taiwanese and Chinese culture in her works. Her novel Where the Mountain Meets the Moon (2009) was named a Newbery Honor Book in 2010, and her picture book A Big Mooncake for Little Star (2018) was named a Caldecott Honor Book in 2019. In 2022, Lin won the American Library Association’s Children’s Literature Legacy Award for her overall contributions to children’s literature.

Lin was born to parents who had emigrated from Taiwan. She and her two sisters were the only Asian American students at their school in upstate New York. From an early age, Lin liked to read and draw. Although her parents leaned toward wanting her to study hard sciences, she attended the Rhode Island School of Design in the 1990s to study children’s book illustration, graduating with a bachelor’s in fine arts in 1996. Lin then worked at a giftware company designing mugs and T-shirts. After being laid off, however, she once again decided to pursue her dream of being a children’s book author and illustrator.

An editor at a publishing house saw her drawings and wanted to know if she had a story to go along with them. Though she initially did not, Lin created a story for the publisher. Those drawings turned into The Ugly Vegetables (1999), a picture book about a Chinese American girl who learns to appreciate the garden of Chinese vegetables that she and her mother have grown. The book was an American Booksellers Association “Pick of the List.”

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In 2001 Lin married Robert Mercer, who, unbeknownst to them both, had also attended the Rhode Island School of Design at the same time as Lin. Mercer was diagnosed with Ewing sarcoma that same year. Lin continued to write children’s books but with a more business-minded approach because of the financial pressures brought on by her husband’s illness.

Lin often featured children of Chinese descent in her books, not only to showcase her heritage but also to add diversity to children’s literature. Her picture books include Dim Sum for Everyone! (2001), Fortune Cookie Fortunes (2004), and Bringing in the New Year (2008). Lin’s children’s novels include The Year of the Dog (2006), The Year of the Rat (2007), Dumpling Days (2012), and A Big Mooncake for Little Star (2018), a folktale about the phases of the Moon. The books are semi-autobiographical, and each follows a young Asian protagonist as she tries to come to terms with her multicultural background.

During Mercer’s illness, he and Lin raised $100,000 for Boston’s Dana-Farber Cancer Institute by auctioning off snowflakes painted by children’s book authors. They called the project Robert’s Snow: for Cancer’s Cure. When Mercer died in 2007, Lin took a break from the project and handed the reins to the institute.

Lin’s board books for babies and toddlers include Up to My Knees!, What Will Fit?, and Circle! Sphere! (all published in 2020). They combine simple math concepts with fun stories. Lin’s Ling and Ting series of books for early readers about six-year-old twin girls includes Ling & Ting: Not Exactly the Same! (2010) and Ling & Ting: Together in All Weather (2015). Lin uses bright colours in her books to enhance her vivid illustrations. She has also illustrated several books for other authors.

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Lin turned to fantasy for Where the Mountain Meets the Moon. In it she combines tales inspired by Chinese folklore with the adventures of a girl who meets various people and magical animals on a journey to find a solution to her family’s poverty. The companion novels Starry River of the Sky (2012) and When the Sea Turned to Silver (2016) follow the same pattern of mixing folktales with fantasy. When the Sea Turned to Silver was a National Book Award finalist. Furthering her interest in folklore, Lin’s book Mulan: Before the Sword (2020) relates an adventure of the legendary Chinese heroine. Lin wrote Once Upon a Book (2023), a modern folktale revolving around the joy of reading, with Kate Messner.