Humour, Heritage and Hawkers
Presentation Janice Khoo, Lianne Ong | Moderator: Caren Lai
In-person * | L5, Possibility Room | Festival Pass
Imagine Humpty Dumpty enjoying kaya toast, Jack and Jill grilling satay on a hill and the Three Blind Mice eating chicken rice at the hawker centre. Join Lianne Ong and Janice Khoo as they discuss the role children’s authors play in preserving parts of Singapore’s heritage with the incorporation of heritage themes in children’s literature. They will also share about how they use humour and rhyme to engage their young readers.
Janice Khoo (Singapore)
Janice is a former public servant turned full-time mum and freelance writer. Her first publication for children, Sing a Song of Hawker Food, combines nursery rhymes with a topic that is dear to her heart—hawker food. Having written a good number of papers on serious topics when she worked for large organisations, Janice finds that writing fiction for children is serious business too, but much more fun. She stays in Singapore with her family.
Lianne Ong (Singapore)
Lianne is a Singaporean children’s author and freelance writer. She has published 14 children’s picture books, three of which have won prizes in the Samsung Kidstime Author’s Award. She is best known for her Stacey & the Museums series, a 5-title series about museums in Singapore, and a nonfiction resource on hawker food, Timmy & Tammy Discover: Singapore Hawker Food.
Moderator Caren Lai (Singapore)
Caren is the Assistant Director to the Grants Team at the Education & Community Outreach (ECO) Division in NHB. Her team oversees and administers the heritage project grants under the NHB Heritage Grants Scheme.
Prior to her rotation to ECO in April 2021, Caren was the Registrar and Assistant Director in the Collections Management Department at the Heritage Conservation Centre (HCC).
Caren holds a degree in Applied Mathematics from the National University of Singapore, and a Master in Arts Administration from the University of New South Wales in Sydney. She is also certified in Basic Western Paintings from the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, Singapore.
All programme dates and times are subject to change and existing COVID measures.
* : Pre-registration is required for in-person events. Seats are allocated on a first-come, first-served basis.