Becoming Margaret Leng Tan: The Toy Piano Virtuoso Who Couldn’t Stop Counting
Written by Low Lai Chow, Illustrated by Dan Kuah
It is not easy being Margaret Leng Tan. Her obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is her constant companion and counting controls her life. Imagine her joy and relief when she began her first piano lessons and discovered where counting truly belonged... in music!
This is the story of how Margaret made friends with her OCD. It is also about how she became the world’s first toy piano virtuoso. This book is the first title in the Becoming Extraordinary series featuring people who overcame challenges to excel in their fields. This inspiring true story based on the life of Margaret Leng Tan, who has triumphed against her lifelong struggles with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). She is a living role model for children dealing with challenges of their own. The books in this series provide a fitting platform to engage children to discuss hard topics such as mental disorders, about having different abilities and accepting differences.
Low Lai Chow (Author)
A journalist by profession, Low Lai Chow entered the world of children's literature in 2020 as the creator of National Gallery Singapore's Art for Tinies board book series with Eat With Your Eyes (2020) and I Want to Play House (2022). Subsequently authoring Catch Mee If You Can: Find the Noodles, Eat the Noodles! (2022), Lai Chow made her illustrating debut with Penguins Eat Pancakes (2022), followed by My Mum and Dad are Separated (2023) and three Chinese-English titles in The Game of Guessing series《最佳猜档》系列 (2023). Margaret Leng Tan: The Toy Piano Virtuoso Who Couldn't Stop Counting (2023) is her ninth book — and her most representative work to date.
Dan Kuah (Illustrator)
Dan Kuah is a comic artist based in Singapore. He began pursuing his dream of becoming a comic book artist when he was just 12 years old, selling copies of his first works to his classmates in school. By 21, he had published his first Chinese comic book. Today, Dan is a published author of seven books covering varying topics.