Allen Say

Allen Say (1939-) (James Allen Koichi Moriwaki Seii) is an Asian American author and illustrator best known for his book Grandfather's Journey, a picture book detailing his grandfather's voyage from Japan to the United States and back again, which won the 1994 Caldecott Medal. His work mainly focuses on Japanese and Japanese American characters and their stories, and several works have autobiographical elements.

Biographical information

Say was born in Yokohama, Japan, to a Japanese American mother and a Korean father who was adopted by British parents. ^[1] At age 12, four years after his parents' divorce, Say went to live with his grandmother, but received her permission a short time later to live alone. The boy apprenticed himself for many years to his favorite cartoonist, Noro Shinpei, an experience detailed in his autobiographical novel The Ink-Keeper's Apprentice. In time Say came to think of Shinpei as his "spiritual father," as well as a mentor.

When his father decided to move to the United States with his new family, Say was invited to come along. He attended military school for a short time, an experience that was decidedly negative: "I learned bad English from rich juvenile delinquents and developed a lifelong loathing for uniforms and professional soldiers." ^[2] He was eventually expelled for smoking a cigarette. In the years before becoming a full-time author and illustrator, Say worked as a sign painter and photographer, as well as being drafted into the U.S. Army for a time. His first children's book as an illustrator was published in 1972, but he refers to Apprentice as his first book.

In 1994, fellow children's author Lois Lowry mentioned Say in her Newbery Award acceptance speech for The Giver^[3], having discovered the day of the ceremony that in childhood, both authors lived in the same Japanese town, Shibuya, and that each remembered seeing the other at the time. The two authors spoke for the first time when each autographed a book for the other and she signed hers in Japanese. ^[4]

Say lives in Portland, Oregon.

Quotation

A good story should alter you in some way; it should change your thinking, your feeling, your psyche, or the way you look at things. A story is an abstract experience; it's rather like venturing through a maze. When you come out of it, you should feel slightly changed.^[5]

Selected Bibliography

• The Boy of the Three Year Nap (illustrations)
• The Ink-Keeper's Apprentice
• Tree of Cranes
• Tea with Milk
• Grandfather's Journey
• Emma's Rug
• The Sign Painter
• El Chino
• Music for Alice
• The Lost Lake

See also

• List of children's literature authors
• List of Asian American writers

Notes

1. ^ http://www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com/authors/allensay/author.shtml Allen Say
2. ^ http://www.eduplace.com/author/say/biography.html Allen Say, Eduplace.com author biography
3. ^ http://www.loislowry.com/pdf/Newbery_Award.pdf 1994 Newbery Award acceptance speech
4. ^ http://www.loislowry.com/pdf/Richmond_Speech.pdf "How Everything Turns Away," speech for the University of Richmond “Quest” series, March, 2005
5. ^ http://www.eduplace.com/author/say/interview.html Interview with Stephanie Loer

External links

• Allen Say (publisher's author profile)
• Allen Say: Articles and Speeches
• Allen Say Interview with Marjorie Coughlan for Pacific Rim Voices, July 2006
• Book Connections: Educational activities related to Say's books and illustrations

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