PORTLAND, Maine — Phuc Tran, a writer in Portland, didn’t have to work hard to come up with the idea for his latest project. In fact, he didn’t have to work at all.
Here’s how it unfolded.
Illustrator Pete Oswald reached out to Phuc (rhymes with Luke) and asked if he’d ever consider writing a children’s picture book.
"I said, 'Sure, why not?' Always take the meeting, right?" Phuc recalled. "We got on Zoom and they pitched me this idea of a cranky, really moody construction vehicle—a crane. And I said, 'Uh, OK.'"
It was an interesting pairing given that Phuc’s only published book at the time was "Sigh, Gone," a powerful memoir of how his family fled Vietnam soon after the war and settled uneasily into a new and strikingly different life in the United States. "Sigh, Gone" has an edge to it, and Phuc’s guess is that, surprisingly, that rawness appealed to Oswald.
"I wrote the book that I would have wanted to read for my kids," he says of this new work. "It’s a little bit snarky but heartfelt. A little bit cranky. It doesn’t pull punches and it’s complicated. It leans into the complexity of how kids feel."
The new book is called "Cranky," a title that sums up the lead character’s peeved outlook on life. Still, he has a certain charm. It’s hard to resist a crane that eats beans for lunch and loves creme brulee for dessert.