The Orange Horse 橘色的馬
By Liu, Hsu-Kung
◎A picture book that sparkles with deep interpersonal connections
The orange horse has been in the big city for a very long time. He is desperate to find his long-lost brother, but the only clue he has is a half-torn photo.
"Anyone with orange skin, fast speed, or black hair might be my brother,"he says. An orange house, a very fast car, and a lion with black hair thus come to meet him, but none of them is the brother he is longing for. Finally, he meets a brown horse, with whom he becomes best friends.
Surprisingly, the brown horse also has a half-torn photo of his missing brother. However, their photos fail to fit with each other. The orange horse feels very depressed, and so does the brown horse. Out of anger, the brown horse takes out his scissors to cut the photo in half.
However, after calming down, he collages the two photos into a complete one. With a smile, he says to the orange horse, "Now, we are brothers."
The Orange Horse is a tender work that, through the author's lovely and childlike illustrations, conveys the importance of interpersonal care, trust, and mutual understanding.
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About Liu, Hsu-Kung
Born in Taipei, Hsu-Kung Liu studied Civil Engineering at the National Taiwan University. After taking picture book making classes in 1995, he embarked on his career as an illustrator. He also taught a picture book writing course in Sarkar School and Holistic Education School. He has won many awards, including the Hsin-Yi Children Literature Award. His work was featured at the 2015 Bologna Book Fair. His published picture books include Whose Home Do We Go To? and The Orange Horse.