Feather

A philosophical picture book from one of China's most celebrated children's authors and 2016 Hans Christian Andersen Award-winner Cao Wenxuan.

A feather is blown across the sky, meeting various birds along the way, and asking each one, "Do I belong to you?".

Cao Wenxuan tells the story of a single feather who is swept away on a journey of discovery and belonging. Encountering a variety of birds, from a kingfisher to a magpie, Feather is hopeful of meeting the bird she belongs to. Again and again, she is dismissed or ignored. Only when she sees that there is also beauty in being close to the earth does fate offer a reunion... Feather is sure to charm young children with a plot at once compelling, meditative, and quietly moving. Roger Mello’s stunningly beautiful, dynamic illustrations will delight readers of all ages.

Cao Wenxuan is a professor of literature at Peking University. He is a member of the China Writer's Association as well as the Vice-President of the Beijing Writer's Association. Wenxuan was nominated and received more than 40 awards, including the Hans Christian Andersen Award, the Chinese National Book Award by the General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP), and the Golden Butterfly Award of the Tehran International Film Festival.

TRANSLATOR: Chloe Garcia-Roberts is the translator of Li Shangyin's Derangements of My Contemporaries: Miscellaneous Notes, which was awarded a 2013 PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant, and author of The Reveal (Noemi Press, 2015). She lives in Boston and is the managing editor for the Harvard Review.