Storyland (故事星球) is a storytelling and liberal arts education centre based in Shanghai, China. Since 2014, we have been inspiring children from ages 3 to 15 to become passionate readers, writers and creators.
We believe in the power of stories and that everyone has a story to tell the world. Through stories, we develop self awareness and build connections with the world.
For over eight years, we have been bringing the latest children’s books to kids in China and have developed premium educational resources to cultivate their love for reading and creating. Our library collection currently hosts more than 50,000 books.
To broaden our knowledge of children’s books in order to create the best educational programs for our kids, we strive to stay up to date with the latest children’s books trends.
In 2019, the Storyland team visited the London Children’s Book Fair and the Bologna Children’s Book Fair and interviewed authors and illustrators, such as Rob Biddulph and Chris Haughton (and obviously hoarded back suitcases of children’s books for our library).
Children’s book authors such as Jeff Kinney, Yayo Kawamura, and Guillaume Cornet have been invited to visit our centres in Shanghai to host workshops for kids. We believe that the reader-author connections formed in these workshops will inspire kids to keep reading and creating for the years to come.
In 2020, we officially started our conversations with children’s book authors and illustrators project on Storyland Podcast, a podcast that has 20k+ listeners in China.
We are the first and only platform in China through which readers can directly hear from book creators about their stories. So far we have interviewed over 70 book authors and illustrators about their passions for children’s books.
Not only have these conversations offered an unprecedented gateway for Chinese readers to directly hear from authors and illustrators behind the picture books they read with their children on a daily basis, they have also been valuable sources of inspiration for kids at Storyland, many of whom are creating their own books for the first time.
Through listening to these conversations on the podcast, the kids discover that even award-winning authors can struggle in their creative endeavours and that none of them created the perfect book at their first attempt. They learn how authors and illustrators around the globe bring their story ideas to life and get inspired to do the same.
Since we started the podcast, we have had some of the authors we interviewed connect with kids at Storyland virtually. Various exhibitions inspired by these authors’ picture books have also been put up at Storyland. You can read all about these in our news section.
About our hosts
Ella Chen holds a Master’s degree in English Language and Literature and has worked as a teacher and teacher trainer for almost a decade. She offers storytelling courses to kids and reading-related training to parents and teachers. As one of the two hosts of Storyland Podcast, she has interviewed more than 10 children’s book authors and illustrators around the world and the project is still in process. Ella loves sports, reading and being creative.
Gina Lu was academically trained in education and has a wide range of teaching experiences with young kids. During high school, she worked in a bookstore in Sydney where she dreamed of writing book reviews for a living. Little did she know that someday she would be interviewing her favourite children’s book authors on Storyland Podcast. She hosts storytelling workshops and activities for kids at Storyland. When she isn’t reading, she enjoys yoga, bouldering and snowboarding.
Storyland 