Grandfather's Journey by Allen Say
Genre: Historical Fiction
Summary This story loosely follows the journey of Say's own grandfather. His grandfather was born and raised in Japan. As a young man he journeyed to America where he took in so many sights such as the desert rocks, mountains and seas, the railroad cars, and diverse cultures. The more he traveled the more he loved seeing all the new places. And while doing this traveling he never even thought of going home. He settled in California because of the strong sun and scenery like the Sierra Mountains. However he missed his home in Japan so he returned and married his childhood sweetheart. Once their child was born they moved back to San Francisco, California. After his daughter grew up the man moved his family back to the village in Japan that he had so been longing for. It was here where the mans daughter had fallen in love and married and then gave birth to the narrator. The narrator and his grandfather grew close and the grandfather told him all the stories of California. Unfortunately war struck and the Grandfather was not going to be able to make it to California one last time as he hoped. The narrator fulfilled the last wishes of his grandfather and went to visit California. he fell in love with it and met a women their whom he loved and had a child with, in a weird turn of events the cycle repeated itself as the narrator also moved back and forth from California to Japan.
Evaluation The illustrations of this book were made to look as though they were polaroids and portraits of what happened during the story. I think that Allen Say did this in order to portray the feeling of memory of which he gained from hearing about his grandfather's tale and then going forward to live it. The way that the pictures and the story work together to genuinely illustrate the passage of time and nostalgia is really cool. Personally I would not use this book in my classroom but I think it might be a good story for children who have immigrated or moved from long distances or know someone in their family who has.
Comments
Post a Comment