PICTURE BOOK - Ojiichan's Gift by Chieri Uegaki

Illustrated by Genevieve Simms

2019, Kids Can Press (HC $16.99)

32 pgs.

Goodreads rating:  4.19 171 ratings

My rating:  5
Endpapers:solid pale sage

1^st line/s:    "When Mayumi vanHorton was born, her grandfather built her a garden.  It sat behind a tiny brown house nearly half way around the world, and it was unlike any other garden she knew."

My comments:  Every summer North American Mayumi spent two months with her Ojiichan in Japan.  He'd made a garden for her, a sand garden, with rocks, and shrubs to-be pruned, and a rake to make patterns in the sand.  And then Ojiichan gets too feeble to take care of the garden and Mayumi makes a miniature one for Ojiichan to enjoy.  Great themes, lovely story and illustrations.

Goodreads:  When Mayumi was born, her grandfather created a garden for her. It was unlike any other garden she knew. It had no flowers or vegetables. Instead, Ojiichan made it out of stones: ?big ones, little ones and ones in-between.? Every summer, Mayumi visits her grandfather in Japan, and they tend the garden together. Raking the gravel is her favorite part. Afterward, the two of them sit on a bench and enjoy the results of their efforts in happy silence. But then one summer, everything changes. Ojiichan has grown too old to care for his home and the garden. He has to move. Will Mayumi find a way to keep the memory of the garden alive for both of them? 
          This gentle picture book story will warm children's hearts as it explores a deep intergenerational bond and the passing of knowledge from grandparent to grandchild over time. The lyrical text by Chieri Uegaki and luminous watercolor illustrations by Genevieve Simms beautifully capture the emotional arc of the story, from Mayumi's contentment through her anger and disappointment to, finally, her acceptance. The story focuses on an important connection to nature, particularly as a place for quiet reflection. It contains character education lessons on caring, responsibility, perseverance and initiative. It's also a wonderful way to introduce social studies conversations about family, aging and multiculturalism. Mayumi lives in North America with her Japanese mother and Dutch father, and visits her grandfather in Japan. Some Japanese words are included.

41. The Language Inside - Holly Thompson

2013, Delacorte Press

522 pgs. (but it's in verse, so it's a quick read)

YA CRF with a multicultural twist

Finished 6/26/2014

Goodreads Rating: 3.80

My Rating: 4/Very, very good

Amelia Given Library, Mt. Holly Springs

Setting: a contemporary Lowell, Massachusetts suburb

1^st sentence/s:
       third time it happens
       I'm crossing the bridge
       that slides through town
       on my way to a long-term care center
       to start volunteering

My comments:  This book certainly had many layers, and many, many themes.  One of those books that keeps you thinking.  Imagine having a stroke in your 30s that only allows you to move your eyeballs?  Imagine living in America, being an American, and having half of your thoughts and dreams in another country? And then on top of that, having your mom very ill, prognosis uncertain.  Tsunami devastation in Japan, the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, Japanese and Cambodian dance, volunteering in a rehabilitation center, living in a new culture and missing the old one as well as living with immobilizing migraines...well that's a lot for one book.  But it works.  Beautifully.
          The book was written in verse and included a lot of references to poetry, which was wonderful.  But some of the verses in the book did not flow well, for me, as I read them (of course, some did). Line breaks and page breaks seemed to come in weird places.  Was it the way it was edited or the way it was written?  No matter, the story was extremely well done.

Goodreads Summary:
          Emma Karas was raised in Japan; it's the country she calls home. But when her mother is diagnosed with breast cancer, Emma's family moves to a town outside Lowell, Massachusetts, to stay with Emma's grandmother while her mom undergoes treatment.
          Emma feels out of place in the United States.She begins to have migraines, and longs to be back in Japan. At her grandmother's urging, she volunteers in a long-term care center to help Zena, a patient with locked-in syndrome, write down her poems. There, Emma meets Samnang, another volunteer, who assists elderly Cambodian refugees. Weekly visits to the care center, Zena's poems, dance, and noodle soup bring Emma and Samnang closer, until Emma must make a painful choice: stay in Massachusetts, or return home early to Japan.

52. Japantown - Barry Lancet

# 1 Jim Brodie/San Francisco Antique Art Dealer/ Investigator

2013 Simon & Schuster

Written for adults

Abandoned - stopped on pg. 146 (401) pages total

Contemporary murder mystery

Goodreads Rating: 3.89 (76 ratings)

My Rating: (2) it was okay

TPPL

Setting: Contemporary San Francisco; Tokyo, Japan; and an outlying small Japanese town

1^st sentence/s:  "Two shades of read darkened the Japantown concourse by the time I arrived.  One belonged to a little girl's scarlet party dress.  The other was liquid and far too human.  City officials would evince a third shade once reports of the carnage hit the airwaves."

My comments:  Well, another big decision to abandon a book.  I don't know what's going on with me - are my tastes changing?  Perhaps it's my interest level....I can't tell.  I greatly enjoyed the beginning of this book, but now it's dragging.  I don't even care why everything is happening.  I'm getting confused about all the people - lots and lots of Japanese names and aliases, waaaaay to hard to remember who's who.  Lots of random killing by people who apparently love to kill and have been trained to do it well for centuries. I have been to Japantown and am getting quite familiar with San Francisco, so I was looking forward to this murder mystery.  Nope.  Gonna go on.  Sorry, Mr. Lancet.

Goodreads:  FIVE BODIES. ONE CLUE. NOT A TRACE OF THE KILLER.  San Francisco antiques dealer Jim Brodie recently inherited a stake in his father's Tokyo-based private investigation firm, which means the single father of six-year-old Jenny is living a busy intercontinental life, traveling to Japan to acquire art and artifacts for his store and consulting on Brodie Security's caseload at home and abroad. 

Tsunami - Kimiko Kajikawa

Illustrated by Ed Young
Philomel Books, 2009
(Ellsworth Library 8/3/09)
$16.99
32 pgs.
For: ages 6-10
rating: 3.5
Endpapers: orange

A "long ago in Japan" folktale, white font on black on bottom eighth of page, illustrations collaged on rest of double-page spreads.

Ojiisan - grandfather - lived high on a mountain overlooking the sea. One day, after what seemed like a minor earthquake, the sea receeded, making more and more and more beach. Ojiisan knew what would happen when the sea came back - and it would devour all 400 villagers. So he set fire to every bit of his valuable rice fields to beckon everyone up the mountan. He saved them all.

Good verbal description of a tsunami - the collages (purposely?) leave a great deal to the imagination.

Erika-San - Allen Say

Published: Jan., 2009
Rating: 4.5
For: Any age
$17.00
Endpapers: Dark grey

This is a lovely book with a lovely story and wonderful illustrations. (I can't say lovely three times in a row!) I didn't rate it a 5 because the story seems a little implausible, though who knows, it may even be based on a true story. It doesn't mention that anywhere, though.

When Erika, an American girl, is young, she sees a picture of a lovely cottage perched on the water's edge on her grandmother's wall. She is told the picture was something her grandfather brought home from a visit to Japan. She loves this picture, and as she grows up she studies Japan and learns Japanese, always thinking about the beautiful picture. As soon as she graduates from college with a teaching degree, she heads off to Japan, for she has a job in Tokyo. But when she arrives in Tokyo she is overwhelmed by the crowds and finds a job three hours away. There she is still overwhelmed by too many people and takes the last teaching job available, one on a remote island. She loves it there. She immediately meets a young male teacher and he takes her exploring the island. And guess what. She sees a cottage that reminds her of the picture on her grandmother's wall. It is a tea house. The ending is very, very cute and satisfying, but I loved the good feeling it gave me, so I won't tell it here.

The illustrations are just delicious, showing modern Japan with so many details - people all looking down as they descend the stairs - all sorts of tiny touches that make me look and look. I probably should have given it a five. I enjoyed this book immensely. I can't wait to read it to a kid somewhere to see how he/she would enjoy it. Is it a kid book, an adult heart-tugger, or something in between?