I’m working on a picture book about one of my grandmothers. She’s been gone for about 8 years now and I’m starting to forget.
Having stories like, Kelly Starling Lyons’ My Hands Tell a Story, however has been helping me pull pieces of my culture and personal history into an actual story.
The picture book published by Reycraft and illustrated by Tonya Engel is about a little girl’s relationship with her grandmother told through the story of her hands and every thing it’s been through.
It’s such a beautiful story and there are so many layers about generation, hard work, passing down of cultural pride, dreams and identity.
I read and reread the text and wonder how so much emotion is captured in short phrases and dialogue.
Another picture book that is full of inspiration to me is The Moon from Dehradun: A Story of Partition by Shirin Shamsi and illustrated by Tarun Lak and published by Atheneum Books. It’s amazing how a true story of partition is woven into a story of a little girl and her doll. It’s something that most kids can relate to, but is also is a larger story of what happened when British India was partitioned into separate nations.
This story captures the real life terror and violence that overtook the communities, but it does so through one family’s story. It could be brutal in its telling because it was, but the author was able to share the monstrosity through simple text and the illustrator brought in some of the realities of what was happening in a way that was true but sensitive to a child.
I love text like this, “Silence greets us like a shadow in our new house. Empty rooms. Clothes scattered.”
Short text gives an emotional punch and we feel it viscerally with little description.
The backmatter also nicely explains what happened but in a concise way. This is the hardest part for me is to decide what belongs in the back of the book-not saying everything, but also providing enough information.
Both books share the importance of culture and history.
What books are inspiring you right now?
*Head’s up. If you click on the affiliate links above and purchase the books, I will get a small percentage of the sale.
