To promote Southeast Asian multiculturalism, Malaysian immigrant mother Cheng Szu-Min collaborated with her two children, Lin Li-An and Lin Yi-Sheng, to create the Chinese–Malay bilingual picture book The Little Monkey and the Mouse Deer. Featuring the classic Malaysian fable character “Mouse Deer,” the book transforms Southeast Asian cultural stories into a picture book suitable for parent–child reading through a process of family co-creation.
Cheng shared that stories are an important window for children to understand the world and are key tools for developing language skills, emotional understanding, and empathy. She recalled frequently listening to fables from her homeland during childhood, yet noticing that Southeast Asian cultural stories are rarely seen in Taiwans parent–child reading environment. This led her to participate in the “Pingtung County New Immigrant Community Empowerment Program” promoted by the Pingtung County Governments Department of Cultural Affairs, working with her children to recreate these remembered fables.
The Little Monkey and the Mouse Deer depicts a mischievous monkey who often teases other animals in the forest, and how the clever and kind Mouse Deer uses wisdom to change the monkeys behavior. The book has obtained a National Library ISBN and has been distributed to libraries across Pingtung County and schools offering Malay language courses, becoming a new reading resource for children to learn about Southeast Asian culture.
Illustrator Lin Li-An, currently studying multimedia design at Ping Rong High School, said she visited farmland to take photos and researched materials to ensure the illustrations matched the story. The entire process, from composition to printing, took three months. The Department of Cultural Affairs noted that such parent–child creations centered on fables, picture books, and language allow multicultural roots to grow locally and expand possibilities for family reading.
