Yamanaka tale speaks from heart
By Julie Jean Cotton Rebecca Breyer | The Honolulu Advertiser
THE HEART'S LANGUAGE BY LOIS-ANN YAMANAKA, ILLUSTRATED BY AARON JASINSKI; HYPERION BOOKS FOR CHILDREN, AGES 4-8, $15.99
Alea Amano, 9, of Wai'alae, and her mother, Imelda Amano, met author Lois-Ann Yamanaka, who talked about her book, "The Heart's Language," recently at Barnes & Noble in the Kahala Mall. Yamanaka's picture book, her first, is a story that Yamanaka based on her experience raising an autistic son.
On a recent Friday night at a Barnes & Noble bookstore in Kahala, distinguished Hawai'i author and poet Lois-Ann Yamanaka came to talk story about her first nationally published picture book, "The Heart's Language."
"Stories don't usually come to me in this form," said Yamanaka, known for her award-winning adult works. "It was a dream I had in college about a blue bird that befriends a little boy. I didn't know it was the foretelling of the birth of my child, who would be challenged."
Yamanaka's son was born with autism. Since JohnJohn's birth 14 years ago, the family has faced a daily roller-coaster ride of joy and heartbreak. Real-life experience drove Yamanaka to depict an honest story for parents and for children.
"I didn't want to make a picture of the good mother who triumphs over all. I've read so many of those books. They left me feeling worse," Yamanaka said. "It's not like that. It's a story of difficulty and fear. That's the story I tried to tell."
Yamanaka's picture book, set in Hawai'i, tells the story of a small boy who can communicate with animals, trees and sea creatures but can't be understood by people, including those who love him most, his parents. The lyrical text begins:
"There once was a boy who could speak to the trees — the ancient koa, 'ohi'a lehua, and tiny 'ohelo.
'Good morning,' he said, his sound floating on a drizzle.
The trees answered in the turn of a leaf, the tip of a bud, and the opening of a blossom that tickled his face.
But the boy could not speak to other people. And other people could not understand the boy.
'No one in their right mind speaks to trees,' the vegetable vendors gossiped in the open market."
What the boy wants most is to tell his parents that he loves them. After a magical bird helps the boy find a way to make himself heard, his parents learn to understand the child in a new way. With no specific reference to autism in the story, the book has a universal appeal.
In bold watercolor images, Seattle artist Aaron Jasinski captures the boy's feelings of loneliness and isolation and the anguish felt by his parents.
Yamanaka said a healer helped her deal with the anguish.
"One of the healers said, 'You can stop running around. You don't have to take him to every therapy, every different doctor,' " Yamanaka said.
Yamanaka now believes that it is JohnJohn who has come to teach and heal, not the other way around.
In an author's note, Yamanaka writes that the truest cure for autism begins with unconditional love. Her acknowledgment of thanks and support to individuals who have been touched by her son runs nearly as long as the picture book's text.
"Who would have thought this possible, to find in this mad world so many who would take a little autistic boy by the hand, and with or without words, in ways both big and small, make him know that they understand and love him?" she writes. "God thought it possible. And so it was done."
