Telling Vietnamese cultural stories through the picture book series "Famous ancient crafts"

In order to reach and serve young readers, Kim Dong Publishing House and its team of authors and artists have invested in creating books with vivid color illustrations, imbued with traditional cultural imprints but still youthful and close to primary school age.

The journey of discovery across the country of the little girl An, the main character in each episode, helps children easily empathize and learn through the trips.

With a simple, easy-to-understand writing style and unique storytelling, the book series has now released 10 volumes, each volume is a vivid slice of the history of formation and development and the unique process of each traditional Vietnamese craft village: "Dong Xam Silver Carving - Preserving the Quintessence", "Chang Son Carpentry Village - The Touch of Time", "Phu Quoc Fish Sauce - The Delicious Taste of the Pearl Island", "Van Chang Blacksmith Village - The Forging Fire Remains Forever", "Lanh My A - Silk Legend", "Bau Truc Pottery Village - Golden Land on the Sacred Field", "Phu My Baskets - Going Offshore to the Sea", "Doi Tam Drums - The Sound of Thunder", "Sung Ban Do Paper - Simple Beauty", "Hue Casting Ward - Heritage Masterpiece".

Telling Vietnamese cultural stories through the picture book series

The book series "Renowned Ancient Craft" has released a complete set of 10 books.

Not only a comic book series, “Vang danh cua co” is also a visual educational tool, helping students realize the importance of craft village culture in modern life, and contributing to preserving national identity. Through each page of the book, students will understand that preserving traditional crafts is not only maintaining a livelihood, but also preserving a treasure trove of Vietnamese history, aesthetics and spirit.

At the event, the group of authors Phuong Bui, Thanh Nguyen and the group of artists NGART, Ruoc Dang, Xuan Quynh talked with readers about their inspiration, the journey of finding content materials and interesting stories surrounding the creative process.

Young artist Xuan Quynh said that in order to accurately recreate the architecture, costumes, settings, etc., artists had to carefully and thoroughly search for historical documents. In particular, the most difficult story to recreate was the one about the casting ward in Hue because this place no longer exists today. The author had to create an interesting and reasonable setting for the character to travel back in time to the past, and the group of illustrators also had the opportunity to challenge themselves with this content.

We spent a lot of time going to the field in Vietnamese villages, meeting and talking with artisans and local people; consulting and comparing information from the "Compendium of Vietnamese Craft Villages" and many other sources.
Author Thanh Nguyen

The book project will not stop at 10 books but will continue to be implemented to introduce more traditional craft villages of the country. Because in the era of technology development and strong international integration like today, helping children understand and appreciate traditional cultural values becomes more important than ever.

On this occasion, young readers and parents also participated in interactive games and puzzles to learn about the craft villages introduced in the book series “Famous Ancient Crafts”, and received book gifts from Kim Dong Publishing House...