Chinese / Malaysia
Xiao bei, Xiao bei, gen wo lai!
(Xiaobei, Xiaobei, follow me!)
Kiov (Yan, Shimin)
(text/illus.)
Kuala Lumpur: Jia xuan chu ban she (Jiaxuan Publishing), 2022. – [36] p.
(Series: Jia xuan chu ban she Da ma yuan chuang hui ben xi lie)
ISBN 978-629-97525-0-9
Snow monster | Naivety | Trust | Deception | Kidnapping | Picture book
Reading age: 4+
White Ravens issue: 2024
A Yeti meets Little White Riding Hood, who has gotten lost and asks him to help her find the way home. She claims they can do so if they tie a red rope around their hands. He agrees, and they embark on a perilous journey. They traverse an eerie underwater world, a terrifying dark forest and a hostile desert. They escape giants and the evil mountain snake prince. And in the process a deep friendship seems to develop between them. When they finally arrive at their destination, the Yeti finds himself trapped in a cage. This is the debut work by Kiov, who graduated from Dasein Academy of Art in Kuala Lumpur in 2017. The cute comic style of simple black-and-white drawings with red highlights is misleading: While parents may think that this story explores the evil side of human nature on a deeper level and raises children’s awareness of danger, children could very well see a hint of witchcraft in the girl’s sewn-up mouth, or read it as an exciting, suspenseful horror story, or as a bad-girl book. [LO]