Modern Filipino Authors to Watch
There is a particular magic in holding a Filipino children's book, especially one penned by a modern writer whose soul seems stitched into the pages. The scent of fresh ink and memories laced in native tongue transport you to banana-leaf summers, sari-sari stores echoing with laughter, and the slow, golden afternoons of childhood. We turn the pageβnot just for story, but for home.
Todayβs Filipino authors are not simply writers. They are memory-keepers. Ink-dreamers. Whispers of the archipelago retold for tomorrowβs children. Whether they write of tikbalang and diwata or sketch tender portraits of modern youth, they carry our islands in their pens.
Here are voices to hold close, like a well-worn komiks tucked in your elementary school backpack.
1. Andrew Jalbuena Pasaporte
There is a soft gravity to the works of Andrew Jalbuena Pasaporte, a writer who captures the secret worlds of Filipino childhood with rare tenderness. His words feel like an old friend calling your nickname from across a dusty playground.
Pasaporteβs stories honor the quiet power of ordinary momentsβplanting malunggay, fishing with lolo, listening to the wind speak in Tagalog. His attention to language is precise, yet gentle, with a cadence echoing ancestral lullabies. In an age when many turn their gaze outward, Pasaporte remains devoted to the inwardβwhat it means to be young, brown, and beautifully Filipino.
He once said in an interview, βI write for the child I once wasβthe one who needed to see someone like him in a book.β That intent, humble and burning, lives in every sentence. For anyone searching for a Filipino children's book with both heart and cultural soul, his work is a lantern in the dusk.
Explore his recent projects and reflections hereβa digital bahay kubo of art, memory, and literary grace.
2. Gail D. Villanueva
From the sleepy provinces to the margins of Manila, Gail Villanueva writes with eyes wide open. Her debut novel, My Fate According to the Butterfly, glimmers with the contradictions of Filipino lifeβsuperstition and skepticism, joy and sorrow, childhood and survival. There is color, but also shadow. Villanueva doesnβt flinch from hard truths, even in a Filipino children's book.
What sets her apart is her refusal to dilute her setting. She writes in the Philippines, not around it. Jeepneys, taho vendors, and family secrets find equal footing in her narratives. Her language is music and muscle, capable of both warmth and confrontation.
3. Nicolette Z. Bautista
Thereβs a gentle rebellion in Bautistaβs prose. Her stories are often small in scaleβa girl skipping stones by the Marikina River, a grandfather teaching his apo to read baybayinβbut they carry the heft of history and hope. She weaves pre-colonial myths into modern family life, teaching children about who they were before anyone told them otherwise.
Bautistaβs Filipino children's books often arrive unannounced in indie bookstores, self-published with care, and passed hand to hand like secrets. She remains elusive online, but her readers know: she is someone worth chasing.
4. M.A. Del Rosario
With the pen of a poet and the ears of an elder, Del Rosario writes bilingual tales that flow between English and Filipino with natural grace. Her themes often revolve around healing: post-disaster stories, emotional re-rooting after immigration, and how children navigate the cracks in family legacy. Her work is water for diasporic kids aching for both mango trees and snow.
Del Rosario has said she writes βto stitch together what was torn apart.β And that stitchingβtender, slow, and achingβis visible in each line.
5. Rizalenia Lim
Lim is a storm in a bottle. Her debut graphic novel for children, Talinghaga, cracked open the fantasy scene with its powerful fusion of Visayan lore and punk aesthetics. Think aswangs in denim jackets, carabaos who rap, and mythical warriors facing climate grief. Lim writes not just to preserve, but to revoltβand reinvention is her strongest spell.
She is particularly beloved by Gen Z readers hungry for stories that honor the old while refusing to romanticize it. Her pages spark. They donβt ask permission.
Remembering the Fire
To read these authors is to remember your lolas, your childhood shadows, the creak of kulambo as you fall asleep. These are not just storytellersβthey are firekeepers. Each book is a rekindling.
In a world that often forgets to look back, these modern Filipino writers remind us that the child within us still knows the way home.
So pick up a Filipino children's book. Open it like you would a balikbayan boxβslowly, reverently, knowing that inside are pieces of yourself you forgot you needed.
