Jaime Lo, Small and Shy

Jaime Lo, a shy Chinese-Canadian girl, observes the world around her through her drawings. When Jaime's father is sent to Hong Kong for a year-long work assignment, Jaime must use her creativity to cope with his absence. This story offers us a lighthearted glimpse into a common dilemma that many immigrant families face, where one parent must work overseas in order to provide for the rest of the family back home.

Jaime Lo, small and shy is part of the NFB's Talespinners 2 . Like the eight films in the first Talespinners collection, this second set of films is for children age 5 to 9. Vibrant animation brings tales from a wide range of cultural communities to the screen. Talespinners 2 includes four original stories and three inspired by books.

The Talespinners 2 films are multicultural but aren't about being culturally or racially different…these aren't classic immigrant or “fish out of water” tales. These are culturally diverse stories that will charm and amaze five- to nine-year olds and their families: stories that feature kids as strong central characters; stories told from a kid's point of view. Truly, these are stories that place kids in real world situations, where they must use wits, logic and compassion to resolve dilemmas. The films are post-immigrant, post-acculturation stories told by a new generation of filmmakers who are artists, Canadians and diverse, in that order, for whom diversity is no longer an identifier of otherness but an identifier of profound Canadian-ness.