GENRE: **Diverse, Character Driven, SEL
WORDS: 505
Query:
Dear PBParty Judges, Agents, and Editors,
I am pleased to share with you OLIVIA HUANG AND LUNA PARK ARE NOT THE SAME PERSON, a picture book complete at 505 words that resonates with themes of Asian solidarity and celebrating similarities over differences.
Everyone at school knows who Olivia Huang is. Top of her class and well-known by her teachers and classmates, she is one of a kind…until Luna Park moves in. Suddenly, Olivia and Luna are constantly being mistaken for one another. Desperate to differentiate herself from Luna, Olivia visits Luna’s house hoping to find out just how unalike the two girls are only to discover they have even more in common than she thought.
OLIVIA HUANG AND LUNA PARK ARE NOT THE SAME PERSON centers on a universally shared experience, especially for Asian Americans living in predominantly non-Asian communities: being mistaken for another person. When this happened to me in my childhood, my reaction was to be defensive and competitive. But if I had approached the situation like Luna, seeking to befriend and find similarities, I could have become more self-assured in my ethnic identity and learned to confidently but congenially correct others who called me by the wrong name, as Olivia learns to do.
Audiences who love a spunky main character who develops the confidence to respond to microaggressions like in That’s Not My Name! by Anoosha Syed or who enjoy seeing characters connect over shared cultural traditions such as in Luli and the Language of Tea by Andrea Wang would particularly enjoy OLIVIA HUANG AND LUNA PARK ARE NOT THE SAME PERSON.
I am an active member of SCBWI and Julie Hedlund’s 12×12 Picture Book Writing Challenge as well as a 2025 Round Table Mentee. In 2025, my writing received honorable mentions in several online writing contests: PBParty, 50 Precious Words, and Spring Fling Kidlit. I earned a degree in English literature along with minors in editing and Korean and am part of the leadership council for a resource group at my work that is composed of and supports Asian American employees. There I’ve met many people whom I’m lucky enough to now call pengyou, chingu, and friend.
Thank you for your time and consideration. I look forward to hearing from you.
Excerpt:
Everyone at school knows Olivia Huang.
She has the best grades, all the teachers love her, and there’s no one else like her in school.
Or there wasn’t…until Luna Park moved in.
It wasn’t so bad until they both aced the spelling test…
And then Luna was chosen to be class assistant…
But when Olivia raised her hand and the teacher called her “Luna,” Olivia’s face went bright red.
What inspired you to write this story & what do you have in common with it:
I grew up in a mixed-race Chinese household but lived in South Korea for a period in my early 20s. While I enjoyed my time there immensely, the experience left me ethnically and culturally confused. At first, I was defensive of my Chinese identity, but when I finally learned that immersion in Korean culture didn’t mean I had to give that up, I was more fully able to embrace all the cultures I had come to love. Fortunately, like Olivia, I learned that it’s more fulfilling to seek common ground rather than focus on what makes us different.
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