Allen Say

Allen Say

            Allen Say is a Japanese immigrant who was born in Yokohama, Japan in 1937. His mother was a Japanese- American woman from Oakland, California, and his father was a Japanese native.  Say’s parents separated when he was eight years old, and he went to live with his father while his sister went to live with his mother. At age twelve, Say moved again and went to Tokyo to live with his grandmother. Since they did not have a great relationship, he negotiated a deal with her to live in an apartment by himself.

            While going to the Aoyama Gakuin School in Tokyo, he became an apprentice to Noro Shinpel, a cartoon artist. This was the beginning of his training in art, and is a very important element of his autobiography, The Ink- Keeper’s Apprentice. When Say was sixteen, he decided to move to America due to the lack of opportunities in post-war Japan. So, he left and moved to California with no knowledge of English to find out that his father had already enrolled him in a military academy. He was the only non-white student attending the school, and was later expelled for smoking cigarettes on school property. With nowhere else to go, he enrolled himself at Citrus Union High School in Azusa, California and pursued art. He attended weekend programs at the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles, as well as the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles. After graduation, Say moved back to Japan vowing never to return to America. However, after a year he decided to move back to American where he worked as an apprentice to a sign painter. He quickly became bored and decided to quit. He got married and moved up north in California and started study as an architect at the University of California at Berkeley. During his study, there was a mistake with his army deferment, and he was drafted into the army. He then spent two years in Germany, but continued to write and draw and take pictures. His work caught some attention from his commanding officers, and Say’s photography was published in the newspaper, Stars and Stripes.

            When he returned from his stint in the army, Say began to work as a commercial photographer. Many art directors and designers were impressed with the way he could sketch out a scene and ideas before committing them to film. It was these individuals who convinced him to illustrate images for books. His first book was Dr. Smith’s Safari in 1972. Say continued to write and illustrate books for the next ten years. The only novel he has ever written was his autobiography, The Ink-Keeper’s Apprentice.

            In 1988, an editor at Houghton Mifflin Company came to Say with a story written by Dianne Snyder, entitled The Boy of the Three- Year Nap. It was an old Japanese folktale, and won the Caldecott Honor Award and the Boston Globe- Horn Award. After winning these awards, Say stopped photography all together and began writing and illustrating children’s books.

            In 2000, the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles held a retrospective on Say’s work in Children’s Literature. Original drawings and paintings were featured along with original sketchbooks.

            I think Allen Say’s books are really interesting too both read and look at. His stories have so many layers of meaning that they can be taken different ways. You can read them for their topical value or dive deeper and read them in a deeper more meaningful way. Personally, I think it is Allen Say’s illustrations that make his books so powerful to read. His realistic way of sketching and painting gives depth and meaning to the illustrations, which in turn give the narration a deeper, more powerful meaning. Like I previously mentioned, Allen Say has won the Caldecott Honor as well as the Boston Globe- Horn Award for his work. Allen Say is a very strong author who creates valuable works that can be appreciated by people of all ages and backgrounds. The only thing is that some of the content matter in his books would be difficult to use in lower elementary grade classrooms. Even I had some difficulties understanding the full depth of his books on the first read through. I had to go back and re read and really pay attention to what he was saying in order to fully understand.

Titles by Allen Say:

Music for Alice (2004)

Home of the Brave (2002)

Grandfather's Journey (1993)

The Sign Painter (2000)

Tea with Milk (1999)

Allison (1997)

Under the Cherry Blossom Tree (1997)

Emma's Rug (1996)

Stranger in the Mirror (1995)

The Ink-Keeper's Apprentice (1994)

Tree of Cranes (1991)

El Chino (1990)

The Lost Lake (1989)

The Boy of the Three-Year Nap (1988)—Illustrations

A River Dream (1988)

How My Parents Learned to Eat (1984)—Illustrations

The Bicycle Man (1982) 

Bibliography:

"About Allen Say." Houghton Mifflin Harcourt - Distinguished Book Publishing since 1832. Web. 13 Sept. 2010. <http://www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com/authors/allensay/author.shtml>.

 

"Allen Say." Something About the Autor. Ed. Donna Olendorf. Vol. 69. Detroit: Gale Research, 1992.       181-83. Print.

 

Education Place®. Web. 14 Sept. 2010. <http://www.eduplace.com/kids/tnc/mtai/say.html>.

"The Gentle Art of Allen Say." USA Today Nov. 2000. Academic Search Elite. Web. 9 Sept. 2010.