The stories in the book are a reflection of his childhood spent growing up in Johor Bahru and crossing the causeway to attend school in Singapore in the 1980s. At 17, he packed his bags and headed to San Francisco to study and has gone on to establish his career there.
The stories first appeared on his blog www.iamboey.com and the number of followers increased over the years encouraging Boey to compile some of the stories into his first book.Funny, poignant, honest, When I was a Kid is illustrated in simple stick figures accompanied by short descriptions. Each story is self contained and can be read in any order.