Swept all of Singapore’s major literary awards for kids and youth:
★WINNER OF THE 2022 HEDWIG ANUAR CHILDREN'S BOOK AWARD
★WINNER OF THE 2022 SINGAPORE BOOK AWARD FOR "BEST YOUNG PERSONS TITLE"
★FINALIST FOR THE 2022 SINGAPORE BOOK AWARD FOR "BOOK OF THE YEAR"
★VOTED TOP TEN READERS CHOICE AT THE 2022 SINGAPORE BOOK AWARDS


★Multi-national Bestseller
★Rights sold:
★GAME ADAPTATION
★SCREENADAPTATION

Can a girl, armed only with stories, make her way through a land of myth, magic and monsters, to save her grandfather's shattered memories before they're forever lost?

His only cure? Memory Glue. To brew it, Alexis just needs eight ingredients: stuff like nose hair from a baku (dream-eater), sweat from a duyung (sea siren) and...OK. Maybe some are tricky to find in local supermarkets.

To obtain them Alexis must journey to a realm where the fabled creatures from Grandpa's folktales are alive in the flesh (and often flesh-eating).

At least she'll have fun company: the nasty kenit (forest imp) who'd cast the horrible spell on Grandpa, and her no-nonsense Grandma, who harbours a secret that'll change Alexis' life forever.

Piece of cake, right?

Oh, there's also a deadline.

Can Grandpa be saved before he's forever lost to the mists within his mind?

Based on a true story.


Subjects covered:
South East Asian and Asian mythology and folklore, fairy tales, folktales
Mythical, legendary creatures
Family
Dementia
Alzheimer's Disease
Grandparents, Grandmother, Grandma, Grandfather, Grandpa

From the Author
This is a fantasy weaving in folktales and mythical creatures from around the world - particularly East Asia - to tell a story about a family threatened to be torn apart by a grandparent's shattered memories (an allegory for dementia, an increasingly commonplace affliction).

The only cure lies in a concoction called Memory Glue, whose various enchanted ingredients lie in a parallel world called Mist, where the mystical creatures from regional myths and folktales are alive in the flesh.

The heroine's only hope for defying the odds lie in the bonds of love and family. The book's underlying message is that these bonds are ultimately the most critical ingredients of Memory Glue.

"When an old person dies, a library burns down" (writer Amadou Hampâté Bâ). Along those same lines, when a grandparent suffers from dementia, the library gets set on fire. It is this author's desire that children would gain more appreciation for their grandparents and the lifetime's wealth of stories and experiences within them, before it's too late and those untold epics are forever lost.

Dementia is a growing issue for many families today. It is often difficult to talk to young children about dementia in an insightful and thoughtful way. Through its premise, the book aims to raise greater awareness of dementia (and dementia care) amongst the younger generation, to be a starting point for family conversations about the topic.

The book is one of the rare works of fiction from Middle Grade readers and upwards featuring the topic of dementia to be published in the South East Asian region. It is a book about a family, written for the family, from ages 8 to 800, for children, their grandparents and the folks in-between. Rather than solely a children's book, this is a family novel.

The book is also a celebration of stories and storytelling, peppered with folktales, fables and magical creatures predominantly from Asia. There is much space for more stories from Asia for Asian kids. And hopefully this novel will help spark curiosity amongst kids to learn more about mythologies from our own backyard, and from within our families' memories.

Malaysia-born and Singapore-based, Daryl Kho works in the regional TV industry, where he basically sells other people's stories and ideas for a living.

He was a prolific creator during his student days: composing songs, poems, plays and even a kung-fu musical! However, after Daryl joined the rat race, corporate emails became his sole literary output. Gradually, his creative tank dried up.

In 2009, just a few months before the birth of his only grandchild, Daryl's father was felled by a series of strokes. In addition to affecting his mobility, it also caused vascular dementia. which robbed him of much of his memories and personality. His condition declined until his eventual death in 2018.

This experience affected Daryl deeply. But he was equally moved by his mother's otherworldly love and strength whilst serving as her husband's primary caregiver. All these, along with Daryl's regret that his daughter never got to truly "meet" her grandfather before the mists moved into his mind, were how his debut fantasy novel, "Mist-Bound: How to Glue Back Grandpa" was born.

For Daryl, each time that a child reads the story is a chance for Grandpa to be "saved", over and over, and over again.

In terms of past works, one of Daryl's short stories that was written as a high school student in Ontario, Canada, was published in INCITE, an annual anthology featuring the best student works from the province. That same year, Daryl was also awarded the Reginald A. Finney Award for Proficiency in Senior English. At his alma mater, the University of Chicago, his plays and kung-fu performances (all co-written, co-directed and co-acted with his landlord, no less!) were the highlight and backbone of the annual Chinese New Year Shows that were performed to paying audiences of close to a thousand.