Drawing from Memory

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by Allen Say. Nonfiction. 72 pages. Grades 4-9.
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Review

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In 1937 near Tokyo, Japan, Allen Say was born to parents who didn't understand his passion for drawing. "When I was drawing, I was happy. I didn't need toys or friends or parents." His parents, especially his father, thought that artists were lazy and scruffy. They expected him to stop drawing, even as a child, and focus on preparing himself to earn a respectable living.

Allen Say, who won the Caldecott Medal in 1994 for Grandfather's Journey, gives us this short memoir in a genre-bending book that has elements of a graphic novel, a picture book and an illustrated autobiography.

As a How-I-Became-an-Artist story it is effective in giving us a feel for his passion, for the obstacles in his way, for the mentor who guided him and for the combination of luck and hard work that began his career. The setting of 1940's Japan gives us an additional intimate view of Japanese culture, family life and the effects of World War II on one boy.

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