Exploring the World of Picture Books: Yohan’s Summer Fantasy

During the school year, eight-year-old Yohan Geevarghese was assigned the task of creating picture books. What initially appeared to be merely more homework blossomed into a full-on new interest. Over the summer, young Geevarghese was able to create many books out of pencils, paper, and bursting creativity. With a young writer this adorable, we had to find out more!

Can you tell us what your stories are about?

My first book is about a high school boy named Tim and his dog named Nile. They travel around the world, and they always have trouble wherever they travel, and they always have a solution. In one of my books, they went to India, and they tried to go to one of the history museums, but it was closed. So the driver had the idea of going to the Taj Mahal. Now, I’m starting a new book that is called Ben, Ace, and Jen. Ben is a boy who works for the CIA, Jen is a girl who works for the CIA, and Ace is their dog. And they’re called the Silver Three! They work for the CIA as agents.

Where do you get the ideas from?

In my new series, for the Silver Three, I watched a lot of spy movies, probably a million times! So I thought maybe I should draw it, a spy book. For Tim and Nile,  there’s this nice guy that I met, and he came here for a debate competition at Tsinghua International School (THIS) where my mom works. My family went to dinner with him and we had a good time, so I thought maybe I should name the character after Tim!

What do you like about the entire process?

I like mostly the imagination, and also the hard part of it. It’s quite amazing, and it takes very long to write my book. I’m serious-super, very long, maybe a week or two?

What else have you been doing this summer?

I have been awesome! I watch TV of course, I play with my toys, I’m taking ukulele lessons, and I started to learn taekwondo.

Behind every young creative is a supportive parent. We interviewed mom Benita Sumita on her thoughts about her son’s newly discovered hobby.

Do you think these stories benefit your child’s creativity?

Creativity is a natural part of getting your kid to write their own stories. But, this summer project is much more because it gets them to practice and build their language skills, practice spelling, and keep them focused on a single task for increasingly longer stretches of time. I believe it gives kids a unique sense of satisfaction to have completed their own project. The only role we play as parents is to ask questions when Yohan gets stuck, or has writer’s block.

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Were you surprised by anything he created? What was your favorite part/story he came up with?

The way he thinks of problems and solutions are quite interesting, especially in his first series – Tim and Nile. The series is realistic fiction, and sometimes the problems are simple and relatable. My favorite is his first book, which he wrote in the second semester of the last school year – A Trip to the Zoo. It was such a simple problem of Tim’s phone running out of battery as he was following directions to the zoo, and finding a solution as easy as rushing to the nearest bus stop to find a map to get to the zoo.

Any words of wisdom for other parents about this activity? Would you recommend it?

Like Yohan mentioned, writing a book takes a while and coming up with the idea, the characters and the plot takes even longer. Be patient. Parents don’t have to watch over the kid’s shoulder but check in on them especially if they are younger kids. There were times when I have checked up on Yohan after 30 minutes and he was just staring out the window. What started off as contemplation, derailed into daydreaming. These things happen, we just need to put them back on track.

What are some activities for kids you recommend when they can’t travel?

I would recommend activities that involve the whole family – at the moment we have started a 2000-piece jigsaw puzzle. We spend an hour on it every day, some days lesser when the pieces start getting blurry and look all the same.

To download Yohan’s book, scan the QR code below.

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Photos：Courtesy of Benita Sumita, Photo by Alexander Dummer on Unsplash

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