By: Ailynn Knox-Collins
Grandfather's Journey by: Allen Say I hate to admit that I’ve only recently discovered Allen Say’s work. I now have several of his books, and I’m loving each one. Say writes with a quiet strength that touches the heart, and I find myself filled with emotion even before my brain registers the words on the page. |
Grandfather's Journey is a picture book, but I like to think of it as a ‘painting book’. The illustrations resemble old family paintings and portraits; the kind our grandparents may have sat for a long time ago. These paintings feel precious, like family heirlooms and as we open the book, it’s as if we’ve been invited in to share those moments with the writer/illustrator. |
The story is a familiar one in many ways – an ancestor emigrates to a new country and discovers a new love for his adopted home, yet yearns for the familiarity of the old, the home of his/her childhood. It’s a family story, one a parent might recount to a child as she sits on his knee. The lyricism of the text evokes familiarity, longing and a restlessness for travel. |
Say’s grandfather leaves Japan “to see the world.” He crosses the ocean on a steamship and explores North America “by train, by riverboat and on foot.” He finally settles in California, returning to Japan to bring his new wife with him. Years later, he returns to Japan so that his daughter can experience his homeland, only to realize that she would be happier in the US. While living again in Japan, he too misses California and longs to return to the US. But war gets in the way, and time flies by. He never returns to his beloved California, but his grandson does. |
That struggle of having your heart torn by two different lands and cultures is, I think, a lot more familiar than we first realize. As people continue to move to the US, they experience the excitement and the terror of beginning a new life. The old life may have had its problems (or not), but it also has its comforts, like the familiarity of a worn pair of shoes. America has long been a land of immigrants, and I don’t think many of us can claim not to have ancestors who came from afar at one time or another. Certainly not all immigration stories will be as tranquil as this one (and that tranquility is perhaps only in its telling), but the fact is that our families came, and now this is our home. There is no sin in being curious about the lands our ancestors came from, nor in longing for that life through their eyes. It doesn’t mean we love our new home any less. Whatever the story is, I believe that it’s important to pass them down to our kids, so that they know where we’ve come from. The children will be richer for it, knowing their roots, appreciating who has come before, and what their lives were like, no matter how difficult or otherwise. |
For this reason, I read Grandfather's Journey to my third grade class. As I turned the pages, the students grew quiet and thoughtful. Few of them had ever thought of where their families were from. So we embarked on a project that spanned a month. The students interviewed their parents about their childhoods, then visited, got on the phone, or Skype, or email, and interviewed their grandparents. The students asked about what their grannies and gramps were like when they were kids, what they wore, what they wanted to be when they grew up, what games they played. With each interview, the excitement grew. Our lessons went on longer than they were supposed to because everyone wanted to share what they’d discovered. (I have a small class, so we could do that). They found similarities, and were fascinated by the differences between their own lives and those of their grandparents. Finally, the students picked a moment in one grandparent’s life, and wrote a short story about it. The results were that I got to peek into my students’ lives and be moved by their stories, and they got to learn more about who they are and where they come from. It touched me when they said they were glad they’d had a chance to get to know their grandparents just that much more. |
So, thank you, Allen Say, for the opportunity to launch this project from your lovely picture book. For this reason and more, I’d recommend this book. |