BOOKS FOR KEIKI
'Music' resonates equally with adults
Music for Alice, written and illustrated by Allen Say; Houghton Mifflin, hardback, $17
By James Rumford
Special to The Advertiser
Allen Say's books are a marvel to me, and his newest, "Music for Alice," is no exception.
In this quiet and touching story, Say uses the same techniques he used in his Caldecott winner "Grandfather's Journey," painting snapshot-like watercolors of exquisite beauty and relating a simple yet moving tale.
"Music for Alice" is the life of Alice Sumida, a Japanese American, told in the first person. Alice tells us of her childhood, marriage, internment during World War II, post-war financial success, widowhood, then old age.
Alice also tells us how she loved to dance as a child. But as we read and look at the pictures, we get a sense that instead of filling her life with dance, she filled it with duty and hard work and when her husband died, she colored her life with the grey, somber tones of grief.
Then on a day many years after her husband's death, she returns to the farm in eastern Oregon where they had made the largest gladioli business in the United States. The farm is in ruins.
"(My husband) would have been sad to see it so. But we had made a small part of the desert bloom with beautiful colors. ... We had a good life there. As I walked around the place, a wonderful feeling came over me.
'Now, I can dance!' I said aloud. "
We turn the page and see Alice, smiling, dancing, in the arms of a handsome young man. We read these words — "And dance I do — all that I can."
We close the book and look at the portrait of Alice painted by Say. We study it. It is so masterfully done that, as we look at the light falling on her, defining the wrinkles in her face, shining off her necklace, we feel as though we know Alice. We understand a bit more about old age and what Agatha Christie once termed "the fresh sap rising."
Hey, wait a minute! "Music for Alice" doesn't sound like a children's picture book. What child is going to read about an old lady who isn't quirky, perky or kind? Where are the cute pigs, the fuzzy-wuzzy bears, the kids with big eyes?
There aren't any. That is because "Music for Alice" is largely, I think, a children's picture book for adults — as crazy as this may sound.
Some librarians and reviewers — parents too — often exclaim that such and such a book is not really for children. They do not see the children's picture book as a bona fide art form.
As an art form, it has attracted not only those interested in writing and illustrating for children but those interested in using the poetry and visual flow of images associated with a children's book as a means of artistic expression, one that can touch the hearts and minds of the very young as well as the . . . not so young.
A "children" picture book may have its roots in books for children, but it has in the last 30 years also become more and more a vehicle for adults to talk to adults.
I think that "Music for Alice" is just such vehicle. But in the hands of a master like Allen Say, "Music for Alice" also becomes a vehicle for adults to talk to children about grown-up things. Its 32 pages bring to mind the cherished memory of that special time when our parents sat us down and told us something real.
On another note, I'd like to say congratulations to Leonard Villanueva for his first picture book, "Kaipo and the Mighty 'Ahi," just out from BeachHouse Publishing. Leonard has written the text and done all of the illustrations. Villanueva has a book signing today (see Lit Beat calendar). Go take a look at his work and give him a pat on the back.
James Rumford is an author and illustrator of children's books, and lives in Manoa. He and Jolie Jean Cotton alternate in reviewing children's books for this page on the first Sunday of each month.
