GRANDFATHER'S JOURNEY

A. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Say, Allen. 1993. GRANDFATHER’S JOURNEY. Ill. by Allen Say. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. ISBN 0395570352

B. PLOT SUMMARY
This is the story of a man’s journey through life and between two countries, Japan, and America, as told by his grandson. The story tells of his live and travels and how he yearns for the other country when he is not there.

C. CRITICAL ANALYSIS
Allen Say creates a book not about a struggle with a conflict to solve but rather a telling of experiences that happened throughout this grandfather’s life. Using both text and illustrations Say creates a vision of life’s wonder and endless opportunity as well as harsh realities. He chronicles the life of a man by including major life events. The text is simple and direct without extra details. The book pares down his life to show the really important things. The book is a photo album with captions.
The illustrations are snapshots of his grandfather’s life and travels. They portray vivid images of his life’s travels.
Cultural markers exist throughout the book. At the beginning, Japan is named as his grandfather’s home. There is comparison of the rivers and mountains of both America and Japan. Songbirds remind him of Japan. There is reference to the bombs falling on Japan and how nothing was left.
The illustrations enhance the cultural impact of this book. Different modes of dress are represented as well as various hairstyles and body types. The changes in the dress and hairstyles reflect the passing of time. The man appears in Japanese clothes at the beginning and ending of this book making a visual statement of life’s circle.

D. REVIEW EXCERPTS
Horn Book starred (March, 1994)
Say's grandfather travels throughout North America as a young man but, unable to forget his homeland, returns to Japan with his family, where the author is born. Say now lives in California and returns to his native land from time to time. "The funny thing is, the moment I am in one country, I am homesick for the other. I think I know my grandfather now." The immigrant experience has rarely been so poignantly evoked as it is in this direct, lyrical narrative, accompanied by soft-toned watercolors.

Kirkus Review starred (1993)
"The funny thing is, the moment I am in one country, I am homesick for the other," observes Say near the end of this poignant account of three generations of his family's moves between Japan and the US. Say's grandfather came here as a young man, married, and lived in San Francisco until his daughter was "nearly grown" before returning to Japan; his treasured plan to visit the US once again was delayed, forever as it turned out, by WW II. Say's American-born mother married in Japan (cf. Tree of Cranes, 1991), while he, born in Yokohama, came here at 16. In lucid, graceful language, he chronicles these passages, reflecting his love of both countries--plus the expatriate's ever-present longing for home--in both simple text and exquisitely composed watercolors: scenes of his grandfather discovering his new country and returning with new appreciation to the old, and pensive portraits recalling family photos, including two evoking the war and its aftermath. Lovely, quiet--with a tenderness and warmth new to this fine illustrator's work.

Publishers Weekly (August 16, 1993)
Say transcends the achievements of his Tree of Cranes and A River Dream with this breathtaking picture book, at once a very personal tribute to his grandfather and a distillation of universally shared emotions. Elegantly honed text accompanies large, formally composed paintings to convey Say's family history; the sepia tones and delicately faded colors of the art suggest a much-cherished and carefully preserved family album. A portrait of Say's grandfather opens the book, showing him in traditional Japanese dress, ``a young man when he left his home in Japan and went to see the world.'' Crossing the Pacific on a steamship, he arrives in North America and explores the land by train, by riverboat and on foot. One especially arresting, light-washed painting presents Grandfather in shirtsleeves, vest and tie, holding his suit jacket under his arm as he gazes over a prairie: ``The endless farm fields reminded him of the ocean he had crossed.'' Grandfather discovers that ``the more he traveled, the more he longed to see new places,'' but he nevertheless returns home to marry his childhood sweetheart. He brings her to California, where their daughter is born, but her youth reminds him inexorably of his own, and when she is nearly grown, he takes the family back to Japan. The restlessness endures: the daughter cannot be at home in a Japanese village; he himself cannot forget California. Although war shatters Grandfather's hopes to revisit his second land, years later Say repeats the journey: ``I came to love the land my grandfather had loved, and I stayed on and on until I had a daughter of my own.'' The internal struggle of his grandfather also continues within Say, who writes that he, too, misses the places of his childhood and periodically returns to them. The tranquility of the art and the powerfully controlled prose underscore the profundity of Say's themes, investing the final line with an abiding, aching pathos: ``The funny thing is, the moment I am in one country, I am homesick for the other.'' Ages 4-8. (Oct.)

School Library Journal (September 1998)
Gr 3 Up-A personal history of three generations of the author's family that points out the emotions that are common to the immigrant experience. Splendid, photoreal watercolors have the look of formal family portraits or candid snapshots, all set against idyllic landscapes in Japan and in the U.S. (Sept., 1993)


E. CONNECTIONS
Young readers can draw and tell of a place they miss when they are not there.

Other books by Allen Say:
Say, Allen. THE BICYCLE MAN. ISBN 0395322543
Say, Allen. THE LOST LAKE. ISBN 0395630363
Say, Allen. A RIVER DREAM. ISBN 0295482941