Yulu's Linen
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- Pre-Order
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- Expected Feb 3, 2026
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- $10.99
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- Pre-Order
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
Joy hums from this “glorious…beautifully styled” (Booklist, starred review) picture book celebration of the richness of the African heritage behind braids, locs, cornrows, and all manner of crowning glory, from ancient times to present day—perfect for fans of Sulwe and We Are the Ship.
Yulu has all the makings of a great artist, her teachers and parents agree. But can she paint a self-portrait? Yulu isn’t sure, even when she finds the perfect canvas made of special linen. She summons her courage and paints. But the next day, the paint has run and oozed and dripped—the painting is ruined!
Yulu picks her brush back up, but day after day, the linen of her canvas itself seems to be rebuffing her attempts. Yulu, undeterred, works on and on. More than a battle with the opinionated linen, this artistic battle is one Yulu wages with herself. Through determination and hard work, can she grow past her natural talent and prove herself worthy of the task before her?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this finely wrought picture book portrait of the artistic process, a canvas of "yu-lu-ma—rain-dew linen" seems destined for young Yulu's brushes, so her father, a frustrated artist who's nurtured her talent, buys it for her first self-portrait. But when Yulu wakes up the morning after creating a work that both of her parents admire, the picture is "a disaster, as if the colors had run all over the canvas during the night," writes Wenxuan (Summer). Lee (See You Someday Soon) portrays Yulu's family and home in muted digitally finished charcoal and wash against which the canvas blazes with vibrant, almost taunting colors. Every day, Yulu paints the portrait again, only to be met with the same result. Her father at last castigates the linen, and her mother, worried about her daughter's health, tosses it. But Yulu retrieves the canvas, paints her portrait for the eighth time, then walks away—and days later, she finds it smiling back. Printed on linen-textured paper, this story of making, part folktale, part love letter to hanging in there, honors the work and wonder at the heart of creation. Characters read as East Asian; skin tones take each page's background color. Ages 4–8.
