A picture book about a contemporary conceptual artist is already a difficult task. There’s a lot to unpack and consider when presenting the work of a prominent conceptual artist and activist to a young audience. Heck, even we adults struggle to make sense of conceptual installation art, so I want to acknowledge that Cátia Chien had a daunting task from the get-go. I believe her work in On the Tip of a Wave is worthy of Caldecott attention, so let’s dive in (and there my water puns will stop!). 

Joanna Ho’s text frames Ai Weiwei’s oeuvre through his more recent work that addresses the refugee crisis of the summer of 2015, when millions of refugees attempted to cross the Mediterranean in substandard inflatable rafts. Those who survived the journey landed on the Greek island of Lesbos, where the artist was waiting, with other humanitarian helpers, to lend a hand. The book anchors its exploration of Ai Weiwei’s work through this moment in history and contrasts it with his own childhood spent in a Chinese labor camp. 

Trauma, war, and loss form the backbone of this book, and there are some powerful images that hit this point home. I write this amidst the devastation of Gaza, and I found the two-page spread showing a loosely colored silhouette of an adult holding a child with scribbled scenes of war, violence, and escape within it to be particularly affecting. 

Chien’s illustrations are done in pencil, pastel, and Photoshop, which allows her to explore a broad range of styles in her illustrations ranging from a tactile-sensation of pencil work done evocative of more childlike artwork to a more elevated style that represents the experience of seeing an Ai Weiwei installation in person.

Chien excels by using color to tell the story of different times and places of the artist’s life, and to unify certain themes within it.  She employs the distinctive color palette of blue, white, and fluorescent orange all throughout (including the solid fluorescent orange endpapers) when addressing Ai Weiwei’s work on the global refugee crisis. She then pivots to drab browns and blues, accentuated with fluorescent orange, when addressing the artist’s time growing up in a Chinese labor camp “where childhood blew past.”

Illustrations have a lot of work to do in a book about an artist: they have to visually represent the artist’s work and place it into context in a way that makes sense to a young reader. Here, they must do so in a way that represents the expansiveness of Ai Weiwei’s oeuvre and the many media that he worked in: film, sculpture, installation, and photography, to name a few. This is where Chien’s work as an illustrator distinguishes itself. 

I hope the Caldecott committee takes into consideration Chien’s accessible, age-appropriate representation of Ai Weiwei’s work. Chien had to decide not only what artwork to include but how to represent that work. Sometimes that artwork is represented through an illustration of it, but at other times it’s a photograph that’s Photoshopped into the larger illustration (such as Grapes, Violin, and Han Jar Overpainted with Coca-Cola Logo). In others, Chien recreates the work and includes it in a larger context that emphasizes the size, scale, and impact on the audience. This is especially poignant in the four pages dedicated to Safe Passage, which show how the work was installed and an audience in open-mouthed reaction. 

That said, there were some instances in which perhaps a photograph or an illustration that allowed more of a close-up view might have been better than the illustration and vice versa. For example, if you didn’t know that Trace featured 176 portraits of political prisoners done all in LEGO® bricks, you wouldn't know that from the text of illustrations alone. 

This is a minor complaint compared to the book’s high-reaching achievement. Chien incorporates the dual metaphors (hands and waves) in a way that makes a strong emotional impact. The final spread shows a boat full of migrants balancing precariously on the tip of a large wave, and is uplifted and supported by caring hands that guide it to shore. 

This book hit me hard during this moment of violence and displacement in many areas around the globe, and reminded me that in times like these, it’s art that can provide perspective and empathy. Chien’s illustrations made a distinctive visual and emotional impact that is definitely Caldecott worthy.

[Read The Horn Book Magazine review of On the Tip of a Wave]