By Heather Camlot
Many children can tell you what they want to be when they grow up: professional athlete, teacher, vet, scientist, YouTuber. Far fewer grow up to have that career. Then there’s Linda Trinh, author of the book series The Nguyen Kids and Legendary Allies.
“I’ve always felt compelled to write, ever since childhood, to tell stories, to put words together, to imagine what’s possible,” she says. “Writing is what makes me feel the most me.”
Imagination is certainly at the heart of Trinh’s books, with their signature supernatural, spiritual and fantastical elements. As a child she enjoyed reading about the mythologies of different cultures, starting with Greece and Egypt. She also adored classics like Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery and Number the Stars by Lois Lowry, which are still favourites today.
But as a child who immigrated from Vietnam to Canada at the age of three, she came to realize her childhood reads didn’t feature anyone who looked like her—“or much diversity at all,” she says.
ROOTED IN REPRESENTATION
Trinh’s chapter books are rooted in representation, introducing not only Vietnamese characters and situations but legends and traditions as well. “The Legendary Allies series is a love letter to Vietnam, the mythical creatures, the food, the attire, and culture,” she says.
The four-book series, for ages seven to 11, follows a quartet of 10-year-olds who are chosen by magical ally animals to heal the kingdom of Van Lang from the lingering problems of the past—war, hunger, fear of differences—known as The Dark Times. The animals have special powers. They also happen to be Vietnam’s four sacred creatures: the phoenix, the turtle, the dragon, and the lan.
Illustrated by Quynh Anh Nguyen, each book spotlights one member of the Legendary Allies Team and their ally animal. Book one, The Healer and the Phoenix, was released in the spring and book two, Quest of the Drowned Lands, comes out this fall. The next two are still in the works, and Trinh will say nothing except “stay tuned!”
The theme of social justice built into the quests of the Legendary Allies Team also features prominently in The Nguyen Kids, Trinh’s first series, illustrated by Clayton Nguyen. So do fantastical and spiritual elements. Here, three Vietnamese-Canadian siblings discover secret powers in the gifts their late Grandma Nội left them. The first three books each spotlight one of the siblings. In The Secret of the Jade Bangle, Grandma Nội’s spirit returns to teach traditional cooking to eldest child Anne, who confronts her first racist experience from her ballet teacher. In The Power of the Pearl Earrings, middle child Liz learns about female freedom fighters in ancient Vietnam while confronting sexism from a new boy at school. The Mystery of the Painted Fan introduces Vietnamese zodiac animals while youngest child Jacob explores gender identity and expression and why people around him can’t accept some of his wants—like a pink hockey helmet. The fourth book, The Journey of the Ancestors’ Gifts, changes the format a bit. It’s told in alternating voices as the family travels from Winnipeg to Vietnam, where the siblings are eager to connect with their roots but are ignored and mocked by local kids.
KIDS BEING KIDS
Trinh doesn’t back down from the complexities of being a child, nor does she let her characters off easy. Uncertainty and discomfort are very much felt before moments of self-assurance—allowing readers to relate to the characters, see their own doubts and know they aren’t alone. In short, Trinh holds up a mirror to society while offering a helping hand.
“I love writing about the trickiness of childhood, big emotions, soft moments, first-time experiences, as well as exploring empathy and the ways human connect,” Trinh said. “I appreciate characters who are reflective about their actions and surroundings, who feel deeply, and who are not afraid to be vulnerable.”
That drive for authenticity is appreciated by her young readers—and their parents.
One San Francisco mom of Vietnamese heritage was so moved by The Mystery of the Painted Fan, she emailed Trinh: “My best friend’s daughter is transgender and my six-year-old is still processing the change of her ‘cousin,’ so this book helped us talk about it too,” she wrote. “These are the stories I wish I had as a kid, and I'm so thankful my children have it.”
SWEET ON SERIES
Writing series offers authors more time to dig into their characters and see how and watch them grow when faced with a new challenge. “I always want to know more about the fictional characters,” says Trinh. “I’m invested in what happens to them next.”
Series also enable writers to stay with the world they’ve invested so much time and effort into building. “I want to honour that creativity by holding time and space and telling multiple stories in that world.” Another reason Trinh writes series? She loves reading them!
For both of her series, published by Annick Press, Trinh wrote the first book and pitched it along with synopses for the potential follow-ups. She intentionally set up the series with each main character getting their own opportunity to shine and share their perspective. Anne with the jade bangle, Liz with the pearl earrings and Jacob with the painted fan, for example. It’s a great way to share a world and offer new situations, challenges, and points of view while bringing forward a protagonist who may connect differently with readers who already enjoy the series or draw new readers in.
When asked if she gets tired of writing about the same characters, Trinh likens it to going to school with the same students or being at work with the same colleagues. “You get to know them, yet you can still be surprised,” she explains. “You may need breaks sometimes from those characters and come back with a fresh perspective, approaching them with curiosity and empathy.”
One drawback of series for some authors may be all the planning—crafting narrative arcs for each book and the series as a whole, figuring out how to connect those stories, remembering to drop breadcrumbs from book to book, and understanding how everything will come together at the end. Trinh calls the entire process “an amazingly fun challenge.” That said, the author—who penned publications for adults before journeying into the children’s world—did not know how much revising, gap-filling, scene-moving, polishing and tinkering went into a chapter book before getting started. “I definitely feel humbled.”
A TIME AND PLACE
Publishing is a humbling experience. It’s a lengthy undertaking involving a great many people to turn one person’s story into a tangible book that readers will hopefully find, buy and fall in love with. For Trinh, the road from childhood dream to published author wasn’t exactly a direct one.
Four years after Trinh and her family moved to Canada, her father passed away. They were living in Toronto at the time and made their way back to Winnipeg, where they first lived in Canada, to be with extended family. Being raised by a single mom meant money was tight.
“While I knew as a kid writing was my purpose in life, I also knew I needed to find work that would pay the bills and support my family.” She pursued a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Manitoba and filled her electives with creative writing and religion courses.
For the past 25 years, Trinh has worked in the field of human resources. Once upon a time it was a five-days-a-week job. She was fitting in writing during evenings and on weekends. Then, eight years ago, she had the opportunity to alter her HR schedule to 80 percent of the work week, giving her one day to write. It was around this time that her fiction and creative non-fiction for adults started appearing in literary magazines, anthologies and online.
Today her HR hours are down to 60 percent. Trinh is protective of her writing days and uses them for deep focus work. She continues to squeeze in writing whenever and wherever she can. “I’ve written on airplanes, in hospital cafeterias, tapping on my phone while on the bus and waiting in my car during my kids’ activities.”
Family time is non-negotiable too. Her husband, Ryan, specializes in accounting and finance. The couple has two kids, 14-year-old Lexi and 11-year-old Evan. Trinh’s mother passed away earlier this year. While writing the speech for her funeral, Trinh reflected on her mom’s passions and skills—cooking, baking, sewing and gardening—things Trinh says she never learned. “But what I realized was that my love of writing, my love of creative expression, all came from her.”
ALL THE MORE REASON
While Trinh works on the next two Legendary Allies books, she’s also outlining a creative non-fiction project about daughtering and grief. When published, it will be a lovely complement to her first book for adults, Seeking Spirit: A Vietnamese (Non)Buddhist Memoir (MiroLand, 2025). Through the collection of essays, Trinh contemplates spirituality in the modern world, how to fill the feeling of emptiness even when all boxes of a so-called fantastic life are checked and whether a parent’s spiritual beliefs can fulfill the next generation.
It’s startling how much of one’s life is filled with questions and concerns. Around age seven, the time children are reading chapter books, is the kickoff to the “age of reason,” when kids come to understand good and bad, right and wrong, life and death, according to experts. Nothing is as simple as it once seemed.
Starbright Mai, the main character in The Healer and the Phoenix, demonstrates the disappearance of wonder and rise of worries as she paces her bedroom on her tenth birthday: “Her alarm didn’t wake her up. The constant car and motorbike honking didn’t wake her up. Even her neighbor’s rooster didn’t wake her up today. Her questions did.”
Chapter books can be an entryway to understanding that other kids are leading similarly complex lives, from dealing with family and friend dynamics to learning to walk in other people’s shoes. These are the impressions Trinh wants readers to take away from her books. As she puts it: “Being a kid is tricky and you’re not alone. Have curiosity. Show empathy. Be true to yourself.”
Just as Trinh knew what she wanted to be when she grew up, her children do too. Lexi plans on pursuing a career as a lawyer and advocate for human rights. Evan wants to be a football player. Hopefully, they too will reach their goals and achieve not only success but at least one moment of affirmation that they took the right road, whether direct or indirect. That moment for Trinh came in spring 2025 during an author visit at an international school in Ho Chi Minh City.
“In the city I was born, I was able to talk to students of Vietnamese descent and from all over the world about books I wrote of the Vietnamese experience,” she says. “It was a powerful full-circle moment.”
Heather Camlot is the author of The Other Side and What If Soldiers Fought with Pillows? She is also a freelance journalist, editor and translator.