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Summary
Summary
As a girl, Alice loved to dance, but the rhythms of her life offered little opportunity for a foxtrot, let alone a waltz. World War II erupted soon after she was married. Alice and her husband, along with many other Japanese Americans, were forced to leave their homes and report to assembly centers around the country. Undaunted, Alice and her husband learned to make the most of every circumstance, from their stall in the old stockyard in Portland to the decrepit farm in the Oregon desert, with its field of stones. Like a pair of skilled dancers, they sidestepped adversity to land gracefully amid golden opportunity. Together they turned a barren wasteland into a field of endless flowers. Such achievements did not come without effort and sacrifice, though, and Alice often thought her dancing days were long behind her. But as her story testifies, life is full of changes . . .
In this striking book, Allen Say introduces readers to the remarkable story of the life of a woman whose perseverance and resilience serve as an inspirational reminder that dreams can be fulfilled, even when least expected.
Author Notes
Allen Say was born in 1937 in Yokohama, Japan and grew up during the war, attending seven different primary schools amidst the ravages of falling bombs. His parents divorced in the wake of the end of the war and he moved in with his maternal grandmother, with whom he did not get along with. She eventually let him move into a one room apartment, and Say began to make his dream of being a cartoonist a reality. He was twelve years old.
Say sought out his favorite cartoonist, Noro Shinpei, and begged him to take him on as an apprentice. He spent four years with Shinpei, but at the age of 16 moved to the United States with his father. Say was sent to a military school in Southern California but then expelled a year later. He struck out to see California with a suitcase and twenty dollars. He moved from job to job, city to city, school to school, painting along the way, and finally settled on advertising photography and prospered. Say's first children's book was done in his photo studio, between shooting assignments. It was called "The Ink-Keeper's Apprentice" and was the story of his life with Noro Shinpei. After this, he began to illustrate his own picture books, with writing and illustrating becoming a sort of hobby. While illustrating "The Boy of the Three-year Nap" though, Say suddenly remembered the intense joy I knew as a boy in my master's studio and decided to pursue writing and illustrating full time.
Say began publishing books for children in 1968. His early work, consisting mainly of pen-and-ink illustrations for Japanese folktales, was generally well received; however, true success came in 1982 with the publication of The Bicycle Man, based on an incident in Say's life. "The Boy of the Three-Year Nap" published in 1988, and written by Dianne Snyder, was selected as a 1989 Caldecott Honor Book and winner of The Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for best picture book.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (5)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 3 Up-Life changes drastically for Alice when World War II breaks out. Like many other Japanese Americans living on the West Coast, she and her husband are forced from their home. They choose to work as farm hands rather than be sent to an internment camp. Together, they overcome every indignity and challenge that come their way, and eventually build the largest gladiola bulb farm in the country. Say relates the true story of Alice Sumida in an understated and eloquent style. Alice's childhood love of dancing is deftly woven into the imagery of the text. As in much of his work, the masterful illustrations provide an emotional depth not always evident in the narration. The overall design, resembling a family photo album, accentuates the book as personal history. The detailed portraits and soft colors of the farm give way to drab hues and figures with nondescript features and wide-brimmed hats that hide their eyes and their identities-symbolic of the plight of Japanese Americans during the war. The final pictures of a now elderly Alice depict the spirit and dignity that her life story suggests. Although the book has much to recommend it, it may have more limited appeal than some of Say's earlier works. It is not as personal as Grandfather's Journey (1993) or Tea with Milk (1999, both Houghton). Many young readers may lack the perspective to relate to a tale that spans decades and deals with such complex themes. Still, with proper introduction, this offering will be appreciated by sensitive and sophisticated youngsters.-Heide Piehler, Shorewood Public Library, WI (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Once again, Say (Home of the Brave) practically takes one's breath away with the understated beauty of his watercolors. With a photo-like realism, he depicts Alice, an elderly Japanese-American woman, capturing every age spot and laugh line and making her radiant skin almost tactile. Her portrait telegraphs an inner peace and elegant beauty. Alice's story begins in California where, as a girl, she "loved dancing more than anything else." But after marrying, she embarks on a life of farming that allows little time for dancing. Say traces her uprooting during WWII, her ups and downs in the fields and the death of her husband. The narrative ends abruptly as the widowed, grieving Alice finds closure when she visits the farm she and her husband left 30 years before, finding it neglected and dilapidated. She declares, "Now I can dance!" The last image shows her dancing with a younger man, a scene that could profit from a bit more fleshing out ("And dance I do-all that I can"). Adults may respond best to this documentary-style life story. For example, the meaning of Alice's comment about their bustling farm ("What good is success if we can't enjoy ourselves?") may escape the picture-book audience. Nevertheless, fans of Say's artwork should relish these paintings. He accentuates the historical milieu with a palette of faded, often sepia tones and still, composed subjects who stare frankly at the audience-as though fully aware of the camera turned on their ordinary but eventful lives. All ages. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
(Intermediate) The fortitude of Japanese Americans uprooted from their West Coast homes during World War II takes an unusual form--not surprisingly--in Allen Say's story of Alice, who, as she confides at the outset, loves nothing so much as to dance. After college she marries Mark, and though he isn't ""much of a dancer,"" they are a match in quiet mettle. Assembled for internment, Alice and Mark volunteer to do field work instead, then escape the beet fields by transforming an abandoned farmstead into a productive farm. The war over, no home to return to, they turn (Mark's masterstroke) to growing gladioli: ""two hundred acres...of sword lilies of pink and white, yellow and purple, apricot and orange""--pictured from the ground as rippling waves of color, from the air as a carpet of multicolored ribbons. In time, working ceaselessly, they become the largest gladiola bulb growers in the country; but ""what good is success,"" Alice thinks, ""if we can't enjoy ourselves?"" Part memoir, part documentary, Music for Alice is at a far remove from Say's hallucinatory internment-camp fable Home of the Brave; its closest counterpart is Tea with Milk, his book about his parents--another pair of down-to-earth visionaries. In a delicate coda, Alice and Mark sell the bulb business, resettle on a small farm in California, and, after Mark has died, Alice, in confirmation of their good life together, dances again, ""all that I can."" Say's exquisite jacket portrait of the elderly, ageless Alice and the last, filmy image of Alice on the ballroom floor are set off by successive scenes-from-the-life: a grim field of stones, drab crates of onions, the trim farm buildings aglow under a high-desert moon. There is more variety of pictorial expression altogether than is usual in Say's work, and a telling conjunction of his feeling for character and for the landscape of the American West. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
Understated full-page water-color paintings and a spare text tell the life story of Alice Sumida, who "loved dancing more than anything else." As a child, Alice wished that "Daddy's tractor would turn into a coach and take me dancing." After college she married Mark, who sold seeds. Like thousands of other Americans of Japanese descent, the couple was forced to evacuate during WWII. In the sandy desert of eastern Oregon, they leased land to start a farm of their own, and after years of hard work became "the largest gladiola bulb growers in the country." Eventually, they sold the business. "What good is success," Alice thought, "if we can't enjoy ourselves?" After her husband's death, Alice visits the farm, now in ruins. In a poignant moment, Alice realizes that now she can dance: "And dance I do--all that I can." Each of Say's exquisite paintings tells a story; together they create a moving testament to a life of hard work and dreams--dreams that find fulfillment in unanticipated ways. (Picture book. All ages) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Gr. 4-7. From the close-up jacket portrait of an elderlyapanese American woman to the final view of her ballroom dancing before a black-tie audience, this picture book, based on a true-life story, will appeal more to adults than kids, though some young readers will respond to the history and the understated, first-person account of trouble and courage. The first painting, repeated on the back cover, is a sepia-tone view of Alice as aapanese American child, dreaming of music and dance on a California farm. She marries, and the World War II roundups follow, with a haunting view of her and her husband in the crowd, labeled like luggage. Instead of being sent to internment camp, they are allowed to grow food for the war effort. Their first harvest is a harvest of stones, but they go on to make the desert bloom and eventually become the largest gladiola bulb growers in the country. One glorious picture shows them in a huge field of flowers. The drama is quiet. As always with Say, the exquisite watercolors tell an American story. --Hazel Rochman Copyright 2004 Booklist