Ruizendaal’s The Red House is a bilingual publication, welcoming English-Chinese readers of all ages. – Photos: ROBIN RUIZENDAAL
The brightly-coloured building known to residents as The Red House is no longer red – time has faded it to pink. But habits are hard to break, so it’s still called “The Red House”.
In Dutch author-illustrator Robin Ruizendaal’s latest children’s book, the titular Red House houses a small, but tightly-knit community of odd characters, from a maker of dolls that give you sweet dreams to a former dancer at the court of an ancient kingdom.
All is not as it seems in this so-called idyllic setting, however. In the story, which spreads out over 111 pages, we follow An, a young girl who lives at the top of the Red House, as she uncovers the mystery hidden underneath. Can An learn about her past without getting entangled in its dangerous threads?
Ruizendaal, based in Taipei, Taiwan, who is also one of the leading authorities on Asian puppet theatres, shares the inspirations and magic behind The Red House
‘The book, I think, became a story that makes you feel good. It is also a book for all ages that you can read at many different levels,’ says Ruizendaal. - PI-CHENG WANG
What inspired you to write The Red House?
In my role as an author and artistic director of a puppet theatre company, I have written many plays for adults and children over the past 30 years, but always with a clear audience in mind.
The Red House is my fourth children’s book, and the third one that’s written in both English and Chinese, but this time I wanted to be completely free and make a beautiful book with a great story about a group of people living together, without thinking too much about who is going to read it.
So I just started writing and the Red House came alive in South-East Asia, with all its colours, smells, beauty, and people. The book, I think, became a story that makes you feel good. It is also a book for all ages that you can read at many different levels.
Are the characters in the book inspired by real-life people?
The characters in the book are not based on any real-life people, but like in every book, they probably all have a little bit of the author in them.
Mr. Oei from 'The Red House', who sells dream dolls.
Mr. Oei, who sells dream dolls in the book, has some interesting symbols on his face. What do they mean?
As he is a man who has some special abilities and can travel in time, he has the Chinese character of the sun and the moon on his cheeks, as well as some Daoist trigram symbols on his forehead and chin.
In your postscript, you mentioned that you wrote the English and Chinese texts independently – why did you choose to write them separately rather than translating from one to the other?
I think and speak differently in both languages and literal translation is important in many cases, but I also have to bridge the cultural gap, so my choice was to go back and forth between the two and come up with two texts, which are in the end quite similar for readers of the two languages.
The residents of The Red House all share a meal together.
You also did the book’s illustrations, which are full of colour and whimsy. Was it challenging to do both the text and the illustration, and what was the process like?
In my previous books I worked with illustrators, although I have been a painter all my life. This time the book designer encouraged me to make the illustrations myself, and so I drew and painted all the illustrations by hand.
I painted acrylic paintings of the main characters first (which are included in the book) while writing, so I was familiar with the way they looked. After the writing was finished, I made all the other illustrations with pen, ink pencil, and watercolours. Now that The Red House is published, I am happy with the illustrations, but it was intense work.
Do you have any favourite children’s books or influences?
There are many influences, but a Dutch book, Puk en de Petteflat (Tow-Truck Pluk), by Annie M.G. Schmidt from 1971, is one of my favourites.
The Red House, published by Gerakbudaya in Malaysia, is available at all good bookstores.
