Vietnamese painter wins Yoto Carnegie Medal

Jeet Zdung (left) and Trang Nguyen

Written and inspired by the real life of Vietnamese wildlife conservationist Trang Nguyen, “Saving Sorya: Chang and the Sun Bear” features a total of 120 watercolour paintings produced by Jeet Zdung. The pictures are the result of a two-month field trip taken into the wild. 

The book features the journey of Chang, a young girl who has big dreams of saving endangered wild animals, telling the story of animals that are close to extinction.  

Chang’s adventure begins when she meets Sorya, a sun bear who was saved from traffickers by the Bear Rescue Centre. Upon their meeting, she is determined to return Sorya back to nature.

Chang and her new friend Sorya take readers on a journey to help them discover the beauty of nature and the life of wild animals through their stories. 

Artist Jeet Zdung, whose real name is Nguyen Tien Dung, was born in 1988. He has won prizes for his illustrations, with his works being shown at the Cartoon Festival organised by the Wallonie – Bruxelles Delegation in Vietnam back in 2012.

According to independent.co.uk, Zdung dreamed of drawing cartoons as a child growing up in the nation and said that the process of creating the book “was a journey to satisfy the child’s longing” he had to create an immersive movie on paper using influences of comics and manga.

The Yoto Carnegies celebrate outstanding achievements in children’s writing and illustration. They are judged by a panel made up of children’s and youth librarians, including 12 librarians from CILIP, the library, and information association’s Youth Libraries Group.

VOV