Eva Chen

VA CHEN, DIRECTOR OF FASHION PARTNERSHIPS AT INSTAGRAM, KNOWS how to tell a story expertly through clothes. “My job at Instagram is two glorious things: fashion and shopping.” But when she became a mother, she was eager for a children’s (Feiwel & Friends, February 1), a children’s book illustrated by Sophie Diao. “I tried to write a book that I didn’t have growing up. I didn’t feel reflected in most children’s books.” Chen, previously the editor in chief of magazine, has written other children’s books, but this one hits closer to home. “I just wrote my personal experience, about the first time I was bullied, about how sometimes I felt like I was a translator for my parents.” She wrote the book during the pandemic while pregnant with her third child, an experience she called a “hormonal bath of emotions at all times.” Ultimately, though, she hopes starts a conversation, “kind of break the ice and help explain to them the way some people might feel.”