Halifax artist encourages kids to overcome fears of swimming in new book

A Halifax artist who was inspired by his own childhood fears of learning how to swim has written his first children's book — encouraging kids to not be afraid of the water.

Jack Wong wrote and illustrated When You Can Swim, in which an adult explains to a young girl all the joys of swimming in lakes, rivers and at the beach.

One line from the book reads: "When you can swim, you'll reach landscapes as foreign as the moon. No spaceship required."

Wong was born in Hong Kong, but grew up in Vancouver. He said he learned to swim at a young age, but as a Chinese immigrant in Canada, there has always been some "trepidation about being in water in nature."

"With friends who loved going to lakes or ponds or the ocean, that wasn't something I grew up with," Wong told CBC Radio's Information Morning Nova Scotia.

"As someone from an immigrant family, we just thought everything in Canada is really cold and 'Why would anyone go into a lake in May?'"

Wong said that is one of the reasons it was important to illustrate children of different backgrounds, including people of colour, Indigenous people, immigrants and people with lower socioeconomic means.

"They're less likely to learn to swim, and the statistics, unfortunately, have it that they're also more likely to drown," he said.

"It's also a systemic inequity, and then it becomes multi-generational because parents who haven't learned to swim, their children are also less likely to learn, so it becomes cyclical."

He said this book is meant to encourage kids to overcome their fear of the water and to enjoy the simple yet universal pleasure of swimming in nature.

To hear more about Wong's new book and his inspiration, listen to Information Morning host Portia Clark's full interview below.