Chinese-British illustrator Yu Rong was among the first to introduce postmodern techniques into Chinese picturebooks. Three of her picturebooks examined in this study- I Am Hua Mulan (Qin and Yu, 2017), The Child Who Wants to be Lost (Jin and Yu, 2021), and Have You Seen the Magpie? (Dai and Yu, 2022) feature Chinese traditional cultural elements, including folktales, famous scroll paintings, Chinese characters, paper-cutting, and jingzhezhuang bookbinding. These books employ a range of postmodern narrative techniques such as multiple narratives, a pastiche of illustration styles, and unconventional design and layout. In the three books, Yu Rong innovates the way to present Chinese traditional culture visually in picturebooks, challenges out-of-date values, and empowers readers to participate in the meaning construction. All of these make child readers’ interaction with culture more participatory and relatable. The findings also suggest that integrating postmodern aesthetics with traditional culture extends Chinese picturebooks’ expressive potential and contributes an Asian voice to global postmodern picturebooks.
