Illustrator's cutting-edge ambition

But she says she valued her life as a homemaker and her identity as a wife and mother, and was happy to keep the house clean and tidy and take care of the needs of her husband and children, although, when she caught a glimpse of the colored paper, scissors, and pencils lying unused on the table, she struggled at times with worries that she should be creating more.

"I was so exhausted from achieving a balance between my career and housework. So I just gave it up," she says.

After 13 years passed in the blink of an eye, and at the age of 43, Yu, who had been "merely an ordinary housewife in Coton village and a middle-aged woman with a somewhat out-of-shape body", told herself, "It's time to think for myself."

In the same year, she published Free As A Cloud in China, which tells the story of a myna bird that loses its desire to sing after being taken from the jungle and confined in a beautiful and spacious home.

The book's illustrations, in which extensive use of paper-cutting is employed, were described by publishers as appearing "out of the blue as an exceptional piece" at a time when children's picture books were not yet flourishing in China.

"Gains and losses vary from choices," Yu says, noting that her husband and children are her most loyal fans and supporters and that her love of children was what made her fully committed to being a children's illustrator.