Book Highlight: Lulu the Hong Kong Cat - The Hong Kong Time Machine

This is a bit of a different highlight. It’s an English title, but it’s written & published by a local HK author and publisher. And it’s about a place that is close to my heart: Hong Kong 🇭🇰

Written & illustrated by Ellen Leou, this book is soo charming. It's not just the fun and endearing prose, or even the beautiful bold illustrations of HK... it is the ~whole package~

From the clothbound covers, foil stamped titles, font selection, typesetting, layout & composition, interesting inline quotes & mini illustrations... it is a VERY well designed book!

Lulu the Hong Kong Cat: The Hong Kong Time Machine is the 3rd book of a series that follow a sweet little orange cat named Lulu as she goes on adventures around HK.

This story opens with Lulu and her best friend—Little Jade—visiting antique shops on Hollywood Rd (a real place on the HK Island btw!).

There, Lulu stumbles onto a time machine and accidentally transports back to old post-war HK in the 40s-50s.

As she tries to figure out a way to return to the future, she learns about life in old HK thru the interesting folks she meets along the way!

I love the history weaved into the book. There was a scene about a family working from home, sewing clothing for factories. This spread particularly struck me, cuz my mom had told me about doing this in her own childhood 🥺

I also love how the author drew the same Star Ferry scene with the iconic skyline as backdrop at two diff times in the story. It was a neat juxtaposition, highlighting rapid changes HK underwent in the 20th century.

This book is on the lengthier side so I would only recommend it for those who have longer attention spans (age 3+). I read 2 of the 3 books to my 3yo son yesterday, and he loved them! So much so, that we read them twice. He had wanted me to read them a 3rd time but I had to stop because I needed to rest my voice lol

I def recommend these books if you want a charming story about some of the more relatively unknown parts of HK (e.g. one book was all about Sham Shui Po!) through the eyes of a adorable orange cat!

Find the book here: Lulu the Hong Kong Cat - The Hong Kong Time Machine

And don't forget to check out the rest of the books in the Lulu the Hong Kong Cat series, and other books in our English Asian Children's Lit collection!