It’s one of Zara González Hoang’s favorite childhood memories: sitting on the floor with her dad, drawing pictures. “My mom was a teacher so we always had materials at home, and my dad was very artistic. I liked to draw horses and he liked to draw boats,” says the illustrator, whose repertoire later expanded to include “animals and monsters and stories I made up in my head and turned into little books.”
Now a mother of two in Falls Church, Hoang is sharing her lifelong love of doodling with a series of free, downloadable coloring pages and drawing activities for kids—call it an antidote to pandemic malaise—on her website.
She also recently wrote and illustrated a children’s book, A New Kind of Wild (Dial Books, April 2020), a story about “imagination, the magic of friendship, and all the different ways we make a new place feel like home.”
Earlier in her career, Hoang worked in the creative departments of several ad agencies and for a company, Duck Duck Moose (later acquired by Khan Academy), that designed apps for kids. These days she’s focusing mostly on writing and illustrating kids’ books, but she also sells whimsical art prints and greeting cards through her freelance business, Mankaco.
Manka means “little rascal” in Polish.