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Tsunami! by Kimiko Kajikawa, illustrated by Ed Young
Breathtaking. Pass-around-the-workroom-and-marvel-at-it gorgeous. Intense. Gripping. A terrific story. I seem unable to describe this book except in tiny movie-blurb phrases. It's that good.
Gazing upon the illustrations in Tsunami!, I could feel the thunder of the great wave in my chest. I felt the pressure of the silence before the wave, and I heard its hissing retreat. The two-page spread of the wave hovering over the village is the best work that Ed Young has ever done, and the story is just as strong. He depicts scale so masterfully here - the temple gate, in pieces, tiny against the crashing wave... the villagers so small as to look like confetti on the exposed beach.
I am grateful that the story is set "long ago" in Japan. If this book had been about the more recent tsunami, it would have been too emotionally wrenching for me, and possibly for younger readers too.
Snow Falling in Spring by Moying Li
I have to say, I always found the story of Mao's War on Sparrows to be a little far-fetched. Leader of one of the world's largest countries, and he takes aim at... sparrows? Seems a little petty. On the other hand, commanding every man, woman, and child in China to go outside, 24 hours a day, for weeks, and frighten off millions of tiny birds so that they have nowhere to land and drop dead out of sheer exhaustion? Inconceivably arrogant. Almost an arbitrary exercise of power. Also, I know it was 1958, but surely somebody must have realized that eliminating such a widespread species might have complicated consequences.
All in all, it sounds exactly like the kind of thing some short-sighted, delusional monarch might decree in a fairy tale.
I recently read about it in Sparrow Girl
, a picture book set during the Cultural Revolution, written by The Talented Sara Pennypacker (the Clementine
books, Pierre In Love
) and illustrated by the likewise talented Yoko Tanaka. A little girl rescues a few sparrows from the Sparrow War and keeps them in her family's barn. In spring, when it becomes apparent that the absence of sparrows has caused a proportional increase in the insect population, and crops all across China are being ravaged because of this, she releases the last sparrows in all of China, and there is hope.
It's a lovely book and a sweet story, but it reinforced my "Naw... really? Oh come on," attitude about this event.
But I think Moying Li's memoir (the book I'm actually reviewing), subtitled "Coming of age in China during the Cultural Revolution," finally has me convinced.
And so, day after day we watched the battle unfold as vigilant Beijingers stood their ground. Then, suddenly, sparrows started to fall from the sky, utterly exhausted. Soon there were hardly any left. At dinner one evening, flushed with pride as he waved a copy of the People's Daily, Baba announced that in our city alone we had eradicated over 400,000 sparrows!
Moying Li takes us along as, step by step, her country moves from the excitement and hope that accompanied The Great Leap Forward to the paranoia, zealotry and despair of the Cultural Revolution. Her family goes hungry, is split up, endures denunciation, but ultimately survives and moves forward. The kindness and loyalty that she encountered during these years brought tears to my eyes as I read.
The pace never falters in this gripping memoir. Not too demanding, the book includes some photographs and a helpful glossary (which would have been enhanced by pronunciations - my favorite axe to grind), and would be a spectacular class read, in addition to being a great leisure read.
Who Made This Cake? text and English translation by Chihiro Nakagawa, illustrations by Junji Koyose
Wonderful! Hundreds of tiny little hard-hatted construction workers use their (comparatively) giant construction vehicles to make a birthday cake for a truck-loving little boy. One huge excavator holds an egg over the batter while another excavator uses its drill attachment to break the egg, and flatbed trucks transport the eggs to the site and the broken eggshells away. Little people in bright boots consult plans, keep the site clean, ride a cherry-picker high into the air to push the button on the oven, and communicate via walkie-talkie. We love a book with lots of little details.
When they bring the helicopter out to lower the "Happy Birthday" card onto the top of the (very tasty-looking) cake, you just want to cheer. What a terrific birthday present this is going to be for some lucky kid!
Endpaper bonus: the tiny folk at leisure - painting, singing, playing ball, reading, and just hanging out.
Pink Me reader bonus: Check out Kikki's Workshop, the Komatsu company's website for kids. Not associated with the book, but full of all the massive construction equipment that certain little people love.
Mrs. Muddle's Holidays by Laura F. Nielsen, pictures by Thomas F. Yezerski
I read this a while ago, liked it quite a bit, kept it out for a good while thinking I'd get to reviewing it soon, but never felt like I had a nice chunk of time and attention that I could devote to it.
I still don't.
But whatever. I just have to sack up and review the book: Mrs. Muddle's Holidays is great. I have to remember to buy it for the school library. It's all about inclusiveness, and community, and being outside.
Mrs. Muddle brings life and color and fellowship to the street by celebrating such things as the Birthday of the Inventor of the Roller Skate and Let's Pretend It's Summer Day. The multicultural neighbors (Hassan, Jen-Mei and Rosa, along with Alicia, Katie, Jim and Tony live in Mrs. Muddle's street) are drawn in semi-realistic, friendly watercolors and pen and ink. Especially engaging are the big spreads with lots of detail. You really want to live on Mrs. Muddle's street, and I'm tempted to try to think up a few seasonal traditions of my own.
There, I didn't have any time, and this review kind of sucks, but I think I said what I wanted to. The book is good.
Wave
by Suzy Lee
Holy wackadoodle. Masterful, internationally-acclaimed author-illustrator Suzy Lee uses a stick of charcoal and one color of acrylic paint and NOTHING ELSE - no words - and chronicles a little girl's encounter with the ocean. In just a few sketched lines, she gives us eager, curious, hesitant, exuberant, intimidated... a new expression every page. It's like the best frames from a whole day of home video, silent except for the call of gulls and the sound of waves, condensed into a slideshow to watch over and over again.
In fact, replace the seagulls with pelicans, and the little girl with my 6-year-old, and you've got our vacation. I took that video myself.
On a road in Africa by Kim Doner, afterword by Chryssee Perry Martin
A day in the life of an animal orphanage in Kenya, told in colored pencil, oil washes, and rhyme.
The textures and details of a trip along the road, to the market, and around the orphanage more than make up for a few rather strained rhymes ("lion" rhymes with "try on," for example). The depictions of people and animals look suspiciously like portraits, and in the afterword we learn that "Every scene in this book has happened and happens still; every person exists and, this very moment, may be wrapping a snuggly blanket around a frightened baby baboon or heating milk for a tiny new cub".
Swahili vocabulary words enrich the text and add a participatory element to an inspiring and accessible book about Africa, excellent for sharing with a class.
Bringing in the New Year
by Grace LinThe bright clear colors and detailed illustrations in this happy picture book for very young kids make it the best Chinese (or Lunar) New Year book I've seen yet. Love Grace Lin, love the beautiful patterned textiles, love the Chinese vocab words.
Our friend Dean, who is Japanese-American, was on some Asian-American Goodwill Committee when he lived in New York. We had made plans to meet him at the New Year's parade, but at the appointed time and place, he was nowhere to be found. We called him on his cellphone and he answered, swearing. Over the sounds of cymbals and (at the time, illegal) firecrackers, he shouted that he was in a 4-man green lion costume, and due to the green lion's low status on the Chinese lion totem pole, they had to either "fight" or pay their respects to every other lion they ran into on the streets, so he was running late. We were totally thrilled, and ran around Chinatown trying to intercept him, but Dean was not. I think those cymbals really got on his nerves.
And I took the above picture in our local Asian super-duper-market, after getting permission from the very nice manager. We bought bulgogi and haiga rice, acorn pudding, pocky, store-made rice cakes, seaweed salad, lemongrass, organic soy sauce, and black rice vinegar. We did not buy durian fruit, red bean pastries, fresh (or canned) lychees, rehydrated sea cucumber, beef tongue, or bai top shells, although we could have.
Good Morning China by hu yong yi
Paradoxically, this good morning book makes a perfect bedtime book. Beautifully illustrated in strong colors and gentle washes, this book quietly describes the early morning activities and routines of Chinese people in a park. There is card playing, there is tai chi. At the end, a large fold-out illustration of the park as a whole places each of the individual vignettes into context.
Every time I sit down with a stack of picture books to review, at least one has to make me cry. Well, get a little misty, anyway - I'm not weird.
I will make miracles is a massive book. Tall and wide, with illustrations done in Chinese ink with brushes that must have been a yard long. You'd have to, just to match the power of this book's idea. A boy, continually asked what he wants to be when he grows up, decides that he will wake the sun every day. And then control the ocean. Heal all the sick. Help the police. Make the world stop fighting.
Susie Morgenstern takes the boy's ambitions far beyond the obvious:
I will stretch out our days and our nights to feel longer
So everyone has enough time to grow stronger.
The boy himself reminds me a lot of Maurice Sendak's Max, with a mischievous or fierce look on his face even as he's solving the world's problems. The ever-so-slightly weak ending ("To change the world from dark to bright, First I should learn to read and write") only brings this giant of a book a little bit back down to earth as it ends and we have to close it.
For anyone, old or young, who wants or needs to be reminded of their own unlimited potential.
Manuel Ramos
CHICANO MAGIC
Business of Art Center
Hagnauer Gallery,515 Manitou Avenue
Manitou Springs, CO
719 - 685-1861
September 21-November 3, 2007 Opening Reception:
Sept. 21, 2007, 5-8pm
Exhibition Dates: Sept. 21 - Nov. 3, 2007
In celebration of National Hispanic Heritage Month, the
Business of Art Center (BAC) in Manitou Springs, Colorado, in partnership with
Museo de las Américas Executive Director
Patty Ortiz, is hosting an exhibition of contemporary Chicano artwork. Ms. Ortiz also served as a guest curator of this spectacular exhibition of Denver area and New Mexico artists.
Chicano Magic explores how contemporary Chicano art has held close its surrealist roots. From the influence of the fanciful imagery of the Mexican muralists to Carlos Castaneda's Mesoamerican shaman study, artists have found it easy to describe the Chicano experience through magical realism and surrealist imagery. With an added fine layer of social activism, the artists presented in this exhibition build a story mixed with tradition, struggle, creativity, and magic.
ARTISTS:
Jerry De la Cruz, Meggan Deanza, Carlos Fresquez, Quintin Gonzalez, Ismael "Izzy" Lozano, Stevon Lucero, Sylvia Montero, Tony Ortega, Daniel Salazar, Maruca Salazar, Santiago Perez, Jerry Vigil, and
Frank Zamora.
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONSNew Madrid, the literary journal associated with Murray State University's low-residency M.F.A. program, announces its intention to dedicate its Winter 2008 issue to the theme of
Mexico in the Heartland. The purpose of the issue is to acknowledge, investigate and celebrate the degree to which Mexico influences those living in the central United States , especially those in Kentucky and bordering states. Submissions may include fiction, non-fiction, poetry, interviews, translations from Spanish, etc.
The main criterion for acceptance, aside from literary excellence, is how well the submission addresses the theme of the issue. Submissions read between August 15, 2007 and November 15, 2007 .
All submissions must be sent via
Submissions Manager. Submissions should be in MS Word format with a 12-point font, such as Times-Roman or Ariel. The attachment should end with ".doc" in the file name. The author's name and contact information should appear on the first page of the submission. Please include a brief bio of the author in the "comments" section of Submissions Manager. Prose submissions should be double spaced and paginated (20-pages maximum). Poetry submissions should be single spaced (6 poems maximum). Simultaneous submissions acceptable.
URREA AND CASTILLO AT WISCONSIN BOOK FESTIVAL
Luis Alberto Urrea and
Ana Castillo will be among several critically acclaimed writers appearing at the
Wisconsin Book Festival on October 10-14. Urrea's and Castillo's event is entitled
Border Crossings, and will take place on October 14 from noon until 1:45 PM in the Promenade Hall of the Overture Center for the Arts, 201 State St. Madison, WI. There are numerous events at this Festival, and many that readers of La Bloga should appreciate. Check out the list of presenters, the schedule, logistics, and much more at the
Festival website.LAUGHIESTAThe 2007 class of the
Circle of Latina Leadership presents:
Laughiesta, a Latin Comedy Night, October 11. 5:30 PM Reception; 7:00 PM Show at the Comedy Works, 1226 15th Street, Denver. $25. 303-595-3637. Laughiesta benefits the Circle of Latina Leadership, a program of the Denver Hispanic Chamber Education Foundation.
Later.
isn't this beautiful?
Adored it. What skill!