Say, A. (1993). Grandfather's
journey. Boston:
Houghton Mifflin Company.
Reading level: AD 650L
Interest level: Grades K – 3
I read and loved “Tree of Cranes” when I was in elementary
school, so I was really interested in “Grandfather’s Journey.” I also just read
“Sylvia and Aki” for class, along with “Hiroshima No Pika,” so it seemed an
appropriate next step to find and read a Japanese immigrant story. Say’s
paintings are gorgeous and sophisticated, giving the work a suitably serious
tone. The cover painting appears on the second page of text, above this text:
“He wore European clothes for the first time and began his journey on a
steamship.” I found this immediately interesting – so rarely do we consider
what wearing “Western” clothing is like for outsiders, although our exports of
junk clothing and cheap clothing foreign imports have done a lot to make the
Western way of dress far more universal than it once was. The text throughout
is beautiful and sparse – “The endless farm fields reminded him of the ocean he
had crossed.”
Say takes us along Grandfather’s exploration of the United States, though fields of farms, factory
cities, and across iconic landscapes, until he finally settles in the San Francisco area with
his wife and daughter. Eventually homesick, Grandfather returns to Japan
to lay eyes on “the mountains and rivers of his childhood.” His daughter
marries and has a son of her own, Say, who Grandfather regales with stories of
“the mountains and rivers of California,”
for which he’s grown homesick. “But a war began. Bombs fell from the sky and
scattered our lives like leaves in a storm.” The war destroys Grandfather’s
home, driving the family back to his boyhood village. Grandfather still longed
to see California,
but never did; this detail is both heartbreaking and realistic. Say immigrates
when he’s an adult, but still misses “the mountains and rivers of his
childhood.” The story ends with “I think I know my grandfather now. I miss him
very much.” As much as this story is about immigration, it’s also about the
human tendency towards nostalgia.
