Meet-the-Author Recording with Joanna Ho

Eyes that Kiss in the Corners |

Joanna Ho introduces and shares some of the backstory for creating Eyes that Kiss in the Corners.

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Joanna Ho: Hello. I'm Joanna Ho, the author of Eyes That Kiss in the Corners, illustrated by Dung Ho.

This story was really inspired by just a childhood feeling that I had growing up that I could not be beautiful because my eyes and my face and my hair
and my skin didn't look like any of the examples of beauty that I saw around me in books, where beauty was always described as golden hair and beautiful blue eyes. Or in movies, like Disney movies, with princesses whose eyes were half the size of their face. So I just never thought that eyes like mine were beautiful. I wished that I had different eyes. I wrote the book partially for my younger self, but for my daughter and for anyone who might feel similarly, whether it's their eyes, their hair, their skin, their body shape to really explore this idea of beauty and what it means to redefine what that means. But also, to recognize our own power in changing those definitions, and therefore changing society.

I have always had a strong passion for inclusion and equity and anti-racist work; that's why I became an educator.
And so it was a similar passion that moved me to be inspired to also write, to try to add another voice to represent stories that have not historically been told. This story is not the first one that I wrote, but it is the first one that was published.

I just feel incredibly grateful for the art and actually the more I look at it and the more I've spoken to the artist now that it's done, and my editor,
I've learned so much about the incredible thought and research and detailed meanings that they layered into all the pictures. I was really sensitive about the way I've seen Asian eyes portrayed in other picture books and so I just wanted someone who could be really sensitive to that.

I'm going to read a little bit from the end of the book where it comes all together:


My eyes crinkle into crescent moons and sparkle like the stars.
Gold flecks dance and twirl while stories whirl in their oolong pools, carrying tales of the past and hope for the future. My eyes find mountains that rise ahead and look up when others shut down. My lashes curve like the swords of warriors and, through them, I see kingdoms in the clouds. My eyes that kiss in the corners and glow like warm tea are a revolution.

This Meet-the-Author Recording with Joanna Ho was exclusively created in February 2021 by TeachingBooks with thanks to HarperCollins.