In How To Draw a Secret (Allida/HarperCollins, Feb. 4), Taiwanese American sixth grader Cindy lives in the Bay Area with Ma and older sisters Jess and Em. Their father used to live with them, too, until he moved back to Taiwan—supposedly for work—four years earlier. The girls must conceal his absence, but as time goes by, Cindy’s confusion and longing for a “perfect” family grow. An art contest themed “What Family Means to Me”—and an unexpected trip to Taiwan for a funeral—lead Cindy to discover the real reason her father left their family.

In this semi-autobiographical graphic novel, debut author/illustrator Cindy Chang portrays, with sensitivity and nuance, the emotional pain of a family going through tumultuous change; the character of the 12-year-old protagonist, grappling with the messy and complicated truth, rings especially true. Kirkus spoke with Chang on Zoom from her home in the Bay Area; our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

I was struck by how accurately the book portrays a young person’s emotional life. You really capture the complicated feeling of holding on to a family secret. I understand this story was inspired by events in your own life. How did you remember things so accurately?

I definitely fictionalized some aspects, but the story is based on real events and real feelings. [My family] secret was something I’d never really talked about with anyone. So a lot of this still felt very present because I didn’t fully process it until I started recovering and working on some of these memories. I also kept a lot of diaries at that time, so I referenced those to relive the feelings and real, raw thoughts I’d had.

Have your family members read this? Did you talk to them while you were writing it?

When I first started working on it, I told them, “Hey, this is going to be a thing. I’m happy to chat more and get your support or see if you’re OK with it.” But [while] I was working on it, I didn’t actually involve them that much. I wanted to figure out what the story was meant to be and how to work on it from my own perspective.

I did share it with them afterward. Part of what I wanted to do with the book was to create space and open dialogue, especially for this topic that we haven’t talked about often as a family. It’s been fun to have some of those conversations together.

What compelled you to start writing about this topic in the first place?

I’d been exploring ideas for a graphic novel or a book, but I was just playing around with different concepts. Then, around 2019, I went to a Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators conference, and that was a life-changing experience. Author Meg Medina gave a talk about following your roots down to when you were a kid—to think of the hard questions you had but didn’t really know how to answer, and to just really remember what life was like. So often, as adults, it’s easy to look back with a different lens. We look back on childhood sometimes thinking, Oh, it was fine. But this exercise was about really sitting and asking yourself, What feelings and questions did I have?

For me, when I think back to childhood, these events were a big topic for me at that time, and I felt I really wanted to poke at that. Also, the graphic novel medium has so much potential and power for telling a story like this that I wanted to explore that further.

How has your experience been as a debut author? Has anything surprised you?

It was definitely a bit daunting and challenging at times; some things can be opaque until you know the industry better. For me, some of the challenge was learning that whole [business] aspect of publishing, plus the actual craft of putting together this kind of story. One thing in particular [that was] unexpected was figuring out the time that it takes—the sheer amount of time to write the book and [create] all the drawings. It took four years to actually put it all together. That part, no one can really tell you, and you can’t know until you’re fully in it. I had to figure out how to make it work with my schedule and life.

What was one of your favorite things about writing this book?

I loved working on the [characters’] emotions—being able to just make a little flick of an eyebrow and change the emotion by really getting the expression right. I hope people enjoy that aspect.

For people who are just starting out writing about their lives, it can sometimes be hard to trust that you don’t have to put your whole story out there for readers to understand what you’re trying to say. What would you say to a new author who wants to express their own story in a way that readers will be able to understand?

I certainly struggled with all this during the process; it’s especially hard when it’s something rooted in a very personal topic that’s important to you. At first I thought, I’ve got to get the facts straight so that people will really know what happened. But I think the work actually lies in the puzzle of going back and doing deep character work. It’s in understanding who these people are, really getting into their heads and trying to understand their motivations and fears—using that framework, going back to the root of what the actual feelings were, and making sure they’ve come out. As long as [those feelings] come through, I think it’s OK for the rest of the story not to adhere to the exact timeline. This [approach] also gave me a way to create some distance between the story and what actually happened.

How did your education degree enhance your understanding of young children? What sort of readers do you hope to reach?

I think I was writing this book for myself as a child, for kids like me struggling with something difficult, something they don’t really understand—kids going through divorce or things like that. If they’re also kids of immigrants, then additional cultural differences are involved where they’re straddling two worlds. The story is pretty specific, but hopefully it has some universal ideas that will resonate with readers who have complicated families or family secrets and are trying to move toward healthier ways of expressing that.

I think there’s also an increasing sense among young people that you must have a perfect image. In Asian culture, there are norms about not losing face, about being obedient. So maybe another takeaway is that you don’t always have to be that buttoned-up, perfect outward image. Sharing the truth and the messy way things are can actually create more connection with the people around you.

Christine Gross-Loh is the author of Parenting Without Borders and The Path.