Margaret Chiu Greanias

How This Book Got Red follows the story of Red, a red panda who can find books about pandas but never ones about red pandas. Accordingly, Red takes action to write her own book with the support of her friend, Gee. And that’s also how Margaret Chiu Greanias began the process of writing this book – to create a picturebook that features the “lesser” read about panda, the red panda, as a main character.

Greanias hopes readers of How This Book Got Red will feel empowered to write their own stories and to know that someone will relate to them or gain a new perspective from them. Also, readers can look at how Gee supports Red and works to be the same kind of friend. More deeply, Greanias hopes that young readers and their adults will consider how the lack of representation in books and popular culture affects real people.

This review is excerpted from an author interview that can be found on the Worlds of Words website.… (more)

This is a story about a red panda who, named Red, was living in a world where everything revolves around all pandas but red ones. Red decided he wanted to change this after a lot of frustration from nothing around his looking like her does. Red ends up writing a book about red pandas and all of the other red pandas thank and praise him for bringing awareness to the lack of diversion for pandas. I really enjoyed this book and think it would be a great book to read to primary students. I think it does a great job at showing what minority cultures may feel when coming to the US. This book it a great way for showing students why it is important to have something for everyone.… (more)