Luminous by Julia Kuo

Julia Kuo is a Taiwanese-American author-illustrator, who has worked with the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, and Science Friday. She has written and illustrated Let’s Do Everything and Nothing, and illustrated I Dream of Popo, I Am an American: The Wong Kim Ark Story, and The Sound of Silence, among others. Her new book, Luminous, explores the fascinating world of bioluminescence, the light made from living things, and its many forms: fireflies and foxfire, fungi and glow- worms, deep-sea fish and vampire squid. Kuo’s radiant art portrays a young child and adult discovering different bioluminescent creatures, and is accompanied by lyrical text and informative sidebars that reveal fascinating scientific facts about each of them.

What are your personal experiences with bioluminescence?

About 10 years ago, I visited New Zealand with my family and we took a tour through the caves of Te Anu. We were thrilled to look up at the ceiling of the cave and see what looked like a constellation of stars, only to realise that each light belonged to a glowworm. Since then, I’ve kayaked in the bioluminescent waters of Point Reyes and seen the dim glow of foxfire in Taroko Gorge in Taiwan. And like many others who live in the Midwest, I’ve delighted in the summer glow of fireflies!

What is your creative process like? What was the process of creating Luminous like?

After these experiences, I was inspired to make some personal artwork about bioluminescence! I’d collaborated with a friend on a short animated video about bioluminescence and had also made a collection of paintings for a gallery show. Kallie George at Greystone Kids saw these and got in touch, asking if I would adapt the existing animation into a book about bioluminescence. I settled on a few bioluminescent creatures I was particularly interested in and worked with Kallie to develop a text that would feel both accessible and educational. The factual sidebars helped a lot here; they allowed the main text to remain spare and to focus on curiosity. When I compare the artwork of the final book and the previous animation, I can still see a lot of similarities!

My favourite part of this book’s process was working with a fact checker. Kallie George reached out to Dr. Steven Haddock to help out, and it turns out that he’s a prominent figure in the world of deep sea research. While we were brainstorming LUMINOUS, Dr. Haddock was uncovering a woolly mammoth tusk on the floor of the Monterey Bay! And somehow still he managed to find time for all my questions about accuracy from creature to creature. I feel so lucky to have worked with him!

Were there any challenges representing bioluminescence visually?

I loved the challenge of depicting bioluminescence, especially with a minimal colour palette! The jewelled squid spread took the longest and eventually broke from this palette because we wanted to show how its light changed over the course of the day. We also spent some time considering what colour to make the glow. Bioluminescence comes in different shades, from yellow to green to blue, but we chose to represent most of it in blue (along with a bit of yellow) because the majority of bioluminescent creatures use blue shades. We also experimented with using a special spot colour to print the blue, but realised through printing tests that the bright blue showed up well even with normal ink.

 

Luminous by Julia Kuo is published by Greystone Kids, 1st November 2022. ISBN 9781771648882. https://greystonebooks.com/pages/kids