Information for Booksellers

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A 2025 CBCA Picture Book of the Year Notable

Then and Now by Datsun Tran

In his picture-book debut, contemporary artist Datsun Tran tells his family’s story of making a new home after journeying by boat from Vietnam as refugees. In vivid ink paintings and spare, resonant text, Then and Now explores the powerful associations a sound, smell or sensation can carry. Young readers are warmly welcomed into two immersive, multi-sensory and strikingly different worlds: then and now.

Datsun Tran combines traditional and modern materials and processes to make ink paintings inspired by classical Chinese brushwork. His art primarily features the natural world, but at its core, it is all about us — our human story.

Datsun is based on Kaurna Yarta. He is available for interviews, shop window installations, and traditional ink-and-brush painting workshops.

Early praise for Then and Now

‘Refugees have been out of sight and out of mind. We are often dehumanised in the media and by politicians. This book is important because it visualises and humanises a refugee story.’

—BEHROUZ BOOCHANI

‘An astounding work of light and shadow, this poetic and profound book is a rare treasure.’

—ZENO SWORDER

‘Then and Now offers a glimpse of what is at stake through the eyes of our children; the future, the reason and reward. This book is a star in the darkness!’

—ABDUL-RAHMAN ABDULLAH

‘Datsun Tran has written and illustrated an incredible picture book. This is an important story that should be shared widely, especially in schools.’

—GABRIELLE WANG

‘This visual masterpiece … is both hopeful and heartbreaking but also wonderfully accessible, so can be shared with a curious younger audience but also used in high schools. We will be sharing this with everyone who comes into the shop! Then and Now is a phenomenal first release by both publisher and artist.’

—RACHEL ROBSON, GLEEBOOKS

‘I think this book should be in libraries at every school — primary and secondary — and would make an incredible curriculum text for study, and cultural support. […] Within these pages, Datsun Tran manages to carry the weight of his family story and a moment in history, so profoundly … at once confronting and cathartic, beautiful and brutal. This is a book that I think will speak to different generations in a myriad ways, and open up passages to empathy and understanding for all. Incredible.
A testament to Slingshot Books as their debut release … [T]he opening line of their artistic invocation reads; ‘We trust children with the disorderly and the revolutionary.’ So may we all — with Slingshot Books leading the way. This book and publishing house are a treasure — a call to action for radical change meeting radical empathy and trusting children with that edict, especially.’

—DANIELLE BINKS