Meet Kao Kalia Yang, Award-Winning Author of A HOME ON THE PAGE
Editor-in-Chief Michelle Schingler Interviews Kao Kalia Yang, Author of A Home on the Page
The word “America” has long been lingua franca the world over to describe this shining land of opportunity, freedom, and rule of law that we call the United States. Indeed, for centuries, the US was considered a welcoming place, where the world’s tired and poor, homeless and tempest-tost could find a peaceful home.
Were it ever so. Today’s guest author is a member of the Hmong people who were forced out of Laos during the Vietnam War era by a secret bombing operation funded through the CIA. After years of displacement, Kao Kalia Yang’s family ended up in Minnesota, only to be subject to racist violence and harassment perpetuated by anti-immigrant Americans.
Kalia is the author of several books including the heart-tugging children’s picture book A Home on the Page, which recently earned a starred review from Foreword’s Editor-in-Chief Michelle Schingler. We were thrilled when they both agreed to a conversation.
The story of the Hmong people is not well known in the American circles that Nou travels, but it should be. What would Nou want us to know about her family’s story and culture?
For Nou, the most important thing for those who are not familiar with the Hmong people to know is that we are a loving people displaced by America’s Secret War in Laos and that in this country, we are simply trying to hold up the hearts of those who’ve survived with the lives we are living, to show them that not all was lost in that horrid war with the Americans and its aftermath, that the most beautiful elements of who we are have survived in how we take care of each other and carry forth our stories.
When she’s at school, Nou overhears people talking about her and making poor assumptions; they do not ask her about herself directly, though, compounding her loneliness. What do you hope young audiences take from this scene?
My hope is that young readers gain valuable insights into how our presumptions of others can hurt and isolate. I hope that as we encounter people from different backgrounds and cultures, language and food traditions, families whose life circumstances are different from our own, we take it upon ourselves to learn more about where each other is coming from, and to come to those encounters with a spirit of curiosity and care. On the simplest level, I want young readers to know that it is not generous or kind to talk about someone when you can speak directly to them.
You don’t hide the violence committed against Hmong people, or Nou’s awareness of it, in your story. Can you talk about how this realism works in—and, indeed, sometimes proves essential to—the picture book format?
Picture books are often gateway books into the world—not simply of literature but of life itself—particularly for children and other newcomers. At their best, picture books simplify the complex structures of societies, communities, and relationships in a particular place and time in the hold of a good story and with characters where we see ourselves reflected; a good picture can offer its readers pathways into navigating and envisioning what is possible in our world and within ourselves. For me, picture books have a responsibility to educate and inform as well as reflect the truths of a world so that it can travel safely into the hearts and homes of children and families; picture books cannot hide from the realities of life if they are to help our children engage honestly and healthily with it. As a child, I experienced racial violence and knew what it looked like, sounded like, smelled like, felt like, but I didn’t always have the words or a way of responding to it; as an adult I know the value of naming the things that happen to us and how stories can help lighten the cloak of hate.
There’s poetry in lines like “trees outside the window swim and grow dark as evening comes” and “the words sit on my shoulders,” reflecting additional trust in the maturity of your audience. Why do you think it is important to sometimes address young readers in an elevated manner?
There’s so much beauty and luxury in language; one is never too young to be exposed, to be invited into a space where words carry both meaning and artistry. My father is a song poet in the Hmong tradition and every day with him is a day where the poetry from his lips filter through our home just as the wind through the trees outside our doors. I grew up sitting at his feet, listening to his beautiful words, and they sank deep into the heart of me, and oiled the engine for the work I do as a writer. I want to share this kind relationship to words with everyone, young and old, to show them that the ways in which we speak to each other or our world can be a gift, a token of what is in our hearts.
The illustrations are quite glorious, with floral embellishments lighting up scenes wherein Nou’s family discusses what makes them feel at home, and dark background swirls personifying Nou’s loneliness and confusion. What inspired these surrealistic stylistic choices?
Seo Kim, the illustrator of A Home on the Page, is the source of incredible art that we get to experience in the book. She’s guided by the very talented art and design team at Lerner Publishing. I, like readers, get to be a recipient of their talents, and I’m so grateful. The Hmong are deeply tied to the land; I come from generations of farmers, poor folk who tended to the earth and was nurtured by it in return. Our tender relationship with the growing things have continued across the oceans; even now my mother keeps a seasonal garden, and I tend a house of plants. I was delighted to see Seo pay such close attention to the plant life of this book, and to honor their place within this Hmong family and the culture I come from. It was deeply moving.
The swirls personifying Nou’s loneliness and confusion is something that we’ve all felt; the weight of the heavy air of ignorance around us, this force beyond gravity that pushes our shoulders low. As Seo discussed in the illustrator’s note at the end of the book, she, too, has childhood experiences of being othered, knowing loneliness and isolation as the only Asian child in her school, and as a child how heavy it all felt.
Can you talk about how the author-illustrator collaboration worked with this book?
This is the second book that Seo Kim and I have collaborated on as author and illustrator. In fact, we both began our career in children’s literature with the same title, A Map Into the World, a book I wrote in 2018 about a young girl’s discovery of the seasons of a year and the different seasons of a life, a story dedicated to an old man who had loved an old woman for a long time and was grieving her death.
In the process of Seo illustrating that book, we developed a respect for each other’s art. After its publication, we were able to attend a conference signing together; I was able to visit Seo’s university and deliver a talk. It was a joy to team up with Seo again in this book, to see the ways in which we’ve grown as writer and illustrator but also human beings; Seo had her first child, and my three were older now. Both Seo and I had worked on other books and honed our crafts in different ways. One of the big gifts I didn’t know how to anticipate on this journey in children’s literature is how I would get to grow alongside other artists in one book and then the next … what a delightful thing, these treasures buried along the path of life.
A Home on the Page
Kao Kalia Yang
Seo Kim (Illustrator)
Carolrhoda Books (Feb 3, 2026)
Nou, a Hmong girl, loves her home, though some people are determined to make her family feel unwelcome. Following an act of vandalism, Nou reflects on the racism that they, and other Hmong people in their community, face. She begins to write her own story of “home,” based on inversions of cruel people’s hatred. In this heartrending but hopeful story that celebrates family ties and the imagination, swooping, surreal floral details are set against lovely textured backgrounds, while tilted images and masses of swirls reflect Nou’s discombobulation. Still, her sweet spirit and wide dreams overcome all.
Reviewed by Michelle Anne Schingler
January / February 2026
Michelle Anne Schingler
