Unable to find any decent children's books for her daughter, Roseanne Thong decided to write her own. 'I'd always written fiction and poems, but it had never occurred to me to write children's fiction,' she says. 'I had mainly written for myself as a hobby. My daughter is half-Chinese - my husband is Chinese. When she was three, I wanted books with images that she would recognise from her life in Hong Kong. I was looking around for something covering different themes such as numbers or colours. There simply wasn't enough out there.'
Originally from South Carolina, the 43-year-old has lived and taught all age groups in Hong Kong for 11 years, after a two-year stint in Taiwan and living in Guatemala. Her fluent Putonghua is the product of what she refers to as a 'supportive learning culture' in Taiwan - something she feels is lacking here.
'Many expats beat themselves up about not picking up the local language, but motivation has to work both ways. It's not a supportive language-learning culture in Hong Kong. Everybody speaks English, and if you try to speak in Chinese you're answered back in English, implying that you don't need to speak another language. The learner isn't given a chance. In Taiwan, you get a round of applause if you can say two words.'
What Taiwan does share with Hong Kong, however, is a lack of English language books for children that reflect the local culture. 'It's a real shame,' she says. 'It's also a reflection on the government's attitude that English doesn't play a prominent enough role any more.'
The idea to take matters into her own hands came during the Mid-Autumn Festival in 1998. The result was Round Is A Mooncake, published in 2002, which focused on shapes. She followed it up a year later with Red Is A Dragon, which dealt with colours. Her most recent effort, One Is A Drummer, covers numbers.
Each is lavishly illustrated by Boston-based artist Grace Lin, and their multi-racial - but essentially Asian - flavours have been especially embraced by parents in America, where there is a healthy market for her books.
'There's both the multicultural market and one I knew little about until a couple of years ago: the adoptive parent market. I started getting e-mails from parents via my publisher, Chronicle Books, asking me to write more stories geared towards Asian kids.'