Blog contributor Marjorie has been posting a series of posts on children’s author’s memories of their grandparents. Her last post in the series is here. I read these posts with much interest since I have been investigating my own grandparents’ history (as well as my memories of them) especially lately on this visit to Japan. Both sets of my grandparents were in Japan and I could only visit them peripatetically over the years. Now they are all gone, but my maternal grandfather, Toshiro Saito, passed his memoir onto his children. I was very interested in this document, but alas, I could not read such complicated Japanese! It took me a few years, but I managed to translate the entire document with the help of my aunt. Recently I was able to publish two sections of the memoir in Canadian journals - one section entitled “Puppet” covering my grandfather’s memories of the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 in on-line journal The Winnipeg Review, and another section, ”At War’s End in Indonesia,” about my grandfather’s experience of the end of World War Two in The Malahat Review. The latter contains his account of embracing his ten year old daughter, my mother, on his return to Japan after an absence of nearly four years during the war. Translating my grandfather’s memoir gave me a new appreciation for the printed word and the importance of keeping a record of one’s memories — that’s the job authors do every time they set down a word in print. They remember, and share, and that is their gift to the reader. I strongly urge you to check out the rest of the posts in Marjorie’s wonderful series. (The photo, I’ve posted, by the way, is of my grandfather’s gravestone in Kyoto with the magazine his work appeared in.)
In this the last post in our Authors Remember their Grandparents series, we welcome author Trina Saffioti, whose recently published picture book Stolen Girl (Magabala Books, 2011) is our current Book of the Month. Illustrated by Norma MacDonald it is the story of an unnamed girl whose experiences as a child of the Stolen Generation of Australian Aboriginal children are based on what Trina imagines may have happened to her own grandmother. abased on her grandmother who was one of the Stolen Generation of Australian Aboriginal children.
Trina is also the author of The Old Frangipani Tree at Flying Fish Point. Descended from the Gugu Yulangi people of Far North Queensland, her writing is influenced by the stories her mother and grandmother used to tell her as she was growing up. Trina lives in Wellington, New Zealand.
My Grandmother
My grandparents were very different. On my mother’s side my Indian and Muslim grandfather died when my mother was very young and her memories of him are few. Her mother, my grandmother, was Australian Aboriginal, Kanaka (Melanesian), and Chinese. My grandmother was a devout Christian and I am amazed by what I consider her bravery and devotion in marrying a man of another faith in what would have been the 1940s. She was a real trailblazer in other ways. I remember her as a very short, very dark-skinned old lady. She had a wonderful singing voice and she sang in the Orpheus Choir in Innisfail, North Queensland. We have a photo from the 1970s of her singing with the choir and you see hundreds of white faces and then this one black face.
She deliberately raised her children away from what she felt were negative influences (drinking, gambling) in the community. She was very strict with a lot of rules. We always had to use a tablecloth; you couldn’t just spread jam out of the jar at the table: it needed to be transferred to a special dish. Always cups and saucers, never mugs, and plates and cutlery always – even for takeaways. We always had to dress up for church. When Granny came to visit us in New Zealand, we would sit at the table eating nicely and sitting up straight, and go to church smartly dressed – and as soon as she returned to Australia, we would revert to our uncivilised ways, eating in front of the television when my mother would allow it, going to church in t-shirts and jeans, slurping out of mugs and (my favourite) drinking cordial straight out of the jug. Drinking cordial straight out of the jug is trickier than it sounds as you have to be both sneaky and silent to avoid making any noise when opening the fridge door. It couldn’t be risked when Granny was around because a) she had eyes in the back of her head, and b) she would’ve had a heart attack if she had seen me swigging away at the jug.
Granny loved shopping and beautiful things. She could be sick in bed all week but on pension day my teenage cousins had to take her to the shops. She would be waiting on a chair at the end of the drive.
She was also a storyteller and told me the traditional Aboriginal Dreamtime stories but also family stories, sometimes with a bit of embellishment. She kept her cards very close to her chest and was very fearful of people in authority. We knew very little of her story and her past right up until she died and even now we only know fragments. We know that she spent a perio
Continuing our Authors Remember Their Grandparents series, today we welcome Elisa Kleven to the PaperTigers blog with a beautiful piece about her grandmother.
Elisa has illustrated two picture books that are about a little girl Rosalba and her grandmother – Abuela and Isla, both written by Arthur Dorros (Dutton Juvenile 1991 and 1995). These are magical stories in which Rosalba and Abuela fly hand-in-hand over New York (Abuela) and over the Caribbean island where Abuela grew up (Isla), powered, as it were, by the flights their imaginations take thanks to the stories that Abuela tells and Rosalba loves.
And, as Elisa pointed out to me, “Two other of my own stories that mention grandmas are The Apple Doll, when Lizzy’s mom tells her that her own mom taught her how to make an apple doll, and my very early book, Ernst, which features a kind, loving crocodilian grandmother.”
Elisa has two books due out later this year, her own The Friendship Wish (Dutton Juvenile, due October 2011), and One Little Chicken written by Elka Weber (Tricycle Press, due August 2011), which she says, “takes place in a little Jewish village, probably something like a prettified, peaceful version of my grandma’s.” Her grandmother’s influence on her work becomes very clear in her piece below, and once you’ve read it, I’m sure you’ll be as glad as I am to know that Elisa is now working on a new picture book about her Grandma Eva, for she sounds a very remarkable person.
To find out more about Elisa’s work, visit our Gallery and read her interview with PaperTigers – and visit her website.
My Grandma Eva (and what she found in clay)
My mother’s mother, the aptly named Eva Art, was a sculptor whose magical ability to conjure vivid people and animals from clay has colored my own world view. Delicate, quick to laugh, sensitive as a bird, Grandma Eva could also be deeply melancholy. She didn’t like to talk about her past. When I would beg her to tell me stories about her childhood in a little Jewish village in Ukraine her mouth would tighten into a sad, tense line.
This much I knew: she was sent at age fourteen with her sixteen-year-old sister to work with relatives in a tailor shop in America, and she never again saw her parents or seven brothers – all lost to anti-Semitic violence.
Her sculptures, however, tell many stories. She discovered her gift almost by accident: as a fourth grader, my mom received the assignment given to all California public school children, then and now, which was to make a miniature model of a California Spanish Mission. Excited by the challenge, Grandma helped my mother carve a tiny mission from a bar of Ivory Soap – and hooray! – her passion for sculpting was born.
Grandma quickly moved from mission-making in soap to shaping figures with clay. As she worked her fingers through the oozy, cool cl
Author Kashmira Sheth has written two beautiful picture-books that focus on children’s realtionship with their grandparents: My Dadima Wears a Sari and Monsoon Afternoon (Peachtree Publishers 2007 and 2008). They are both illustrated by Yoshiko Jaeggi and, in fact, work together as a balanced pair, since My Dadima Wears a Sari is about a littel girl Rupa and her grandmother, who shows her a myriad of imaginative uses for a sari beyond simply wearing it; and Monsoon Afternoon tells the story of a little boy who is able to rely on his Dadaji out of all his family to play with him under the monsoon. The books also highlight the importance for children of not only being able to trust unquestionably in that special gift of grandparents to devote time to their grandchildren without deadlines or chores getting in the way, but also to pass on those small details of a personal family history that provide roots and grounding for a child.
We are delighted to welcome Kashmira to the Papertigers blog as part of our Authors Remember their Grandparents series. You can also read our 2010 interview with Kashmira and visit her website to find out about all her books.
Waterfall
I called my grandfather the same name as my mother called him, Bapuji. Bapuji means father. I don’t know why I didn’t call him Dadaji. It could be because I had a great grandfather whom I called Dadaji. I lived with my grandparents and great grandfather until I was eight so I have many wonderful memories of them.
One of my earliest memories with Bapuji never fails to bring a smile to my face. I must have been six or seven years old when we went to visit a temple in a town called Gadhda, located on Ghalo River. After visiting the temple, we went to Ghalo River. I don’t remember what month it was, but as grass, shrubs, and trees around the river were lush and thick, it might have been monsoon season or just after.
We walked along the banks until we came to a small waterfall. My grandparents, my uncle, cousins, and my mom all took a dip in the water. I, who had never had a shower, but had only taken baths with a bucket of water, was thrilled by the misty spray. I walked closer to the waterfall. Suddenly, Bapuji scooped me up. With his outstretched hands he placed me on a stone ledge. It was as if he had offered me to the waterfall!
On the ledge the water was more than a mist now. It was a powerful shower that soaked me. I was excited and scared at the same time. He took me back to the river bank and I begged, “Farithi, again.”
He did it again and again.
I don’t remember anything else about that trip—just his placing me under the waterfall, my begging for more, and his complying.
Bapuji died a long time ago. Often, when I think of him, I close my eyes. Time melts away and I become a young girl under the waterfall again. When I do that, it is not only that memory but also his love that showers me.
Kashmira Sheth
Continuing our Authors Remember Their Grandparents series, today we welcome author and illustrator Yuyi Morales to PaperTigers with a poignant piece about her Grandpa Felix.
Yuyi’s most recent book is Ladder to the Moon, written by Maya Soetoro-Ng (Candlewick Press/Walker Books, 2011). It is the story of a little girl Suhaila whose wish that she could know her grandmother is granted one night, when a golden ladder appears with Grandma Annie, ready to take her up to the moon. Read more about the book on Yuyi’s website, and take a look at the first few pages here - gorgeous!
This is not the first time Yuyi has depicted a grandmother by any means – there is her rosy-cheeked Abuelita with hair “the color of salt” in the exuberant My Abuelita written by Tony Johnston, our current Book of the Month on the main PaperTigers website (Harcourt Children’s Books, 2009). And there are her own picture books starring Señor Calavera – Just a Minute: A Trickster Tale and Counting Book (Chronicle Books, 2003) and Just in Case: A Trickster Tale and Alphabet Book (Roaring Brook Press, 2008): we are big fans of both of them in our household and love Señor Calavera’s website.
Visit Yuyi’s PaperTigers Gallery, enjoy her wonderful interview/gasp at the images over at 7-Imp’s, and find out about all her books and her many projects on her website and blog.
Grandpa Felix
My white dress of crochet clusters like popcorn, mama made especially for me.
She also made the wings and a halo with antennas, and painted with powder my cheeks, and when I saw myself in the mirror I was a butterfly.
At school I fluttered like I was supposed to do, I ran in a circle and flapped my arms with my wings behind. But nobody looked at me.
Everybody was too busy watching the pretty white girl flap her transparent arms and shake her chamomile washed hair.
Even mama, her swollen eyes straight at me, was looking somewhere else.
Nobody cares to watch the brown that is me.
Just like nobody wants to play with a girl with baby shoes that fit the insole inside and hold my leg right so that some day I can have straight feet.
“Mama, those shoes with the golden buckle and the bow on top are so lovely,” I have been telling her every time we pass by the glass case of the shoe store.
But mama doesn’t say much anymore.
She must be tired of repeating what I already know. That I have to stick with these ugly baby shoes until… when? Until I am a grown up.
Clipity, clap, clipity, clap, went my shoes while we left school.
Pling, plong, pling, plong, went my mama’s eye tears while we walked down the street. To Grandpa Felix’s house.
He is my abuelo because mama told me so. But he doesn’t remember me.
I know it because the other day when our teacher took us to the park, and my grandpa was
Blog contributor Marjorie has been posting a series of posts on children’s author’s memories of their grandparents. Her last post in the series is here. I read these posts with much interest since I have been investigating my own grandparents’ history (as well as my memories of them) especially lately on this visit to Japan. Both sets of my grandparents were in Japan and I could only visit them peripatetically over the years. Now they are all gone, but my maternal grandfather, Toshiro Saito, passed his memoir onto his children. I was very interested in this document, but alas, I could not read such complicated Japanese! It took me a few years, but I managed to translate the entire document with the help of my aunt. Recently I was able to publish two sections of the memoir in Canadian journals - one section entitled “Puppet” covering my grandfather’s memories of the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 in on-line journal The Winnipeg Review, and another section, ”At War’s End in Indonesia,” about my grandfather’s experience of the end of World War Two in The Malahat Review. The latter contains his account of embracing his ten year old daughter, my mother, on his return to Japan after an absence of nearly four years during the war. Translating my grandfather’s memoir gave me a new appreciation for the printed word and the importance of keeping a record of one’s memories — that’s the job authors do every time they set down a word in print. They remember, and share, and that is their gift to the reader. I strongly urge you to check out the rest of the posts in Marjorie’s wonderful series. (The photo, I’ve posted, by the way, is of my grandfather’s gravestone in Kyoto with the magazine his work appeared in.)