The Starry Starry Night

Starry, Starry Night is a picture book about friendship and the beauty of the world, published in 2009. Taiwanese illustrator Jimmy Liao breaks from the usual picture book format: instead of the standard 32 or 48 pages, this book spans 136 pages, filled with full-spread and panoramic illustrations.

The idea came from a news story about two high school students who ran away from home. They were simply walking in nature and watching the stars, and Liao was moved by the simplicity and innocence of their act. He set aside other projects and began drawing scenes of their escape. However, these initial illustrations were not enough to form a full story; he needed to create a backstory and understand why the two decided to run away.

Liao describes the process in detail: the first ten illustrations took a year, the next ten another year. The work grew increasingly complex, and he struggled to find the narrative thread connecting the images. After pausing and working on other projects, inspiration struck again during his fourth year, influenced by the works of Van Gogh and Magritte. Elements came together—the grandfather character, the idea of a foreign exchange student—and the story gradually took shape. Even then, translating the narrative into illustrations and text required extraordinary effort.

Jimmy Liao has created and illustrated over fifty books, several of which have been adapted into films and animations.