When was allen say born

In July , Say's student deferment was revoked owing to a technicality and he was drafted into the army. His next two years were spent in Germany, and after his work caught the eye of a commanding officer, he published his first work in photography in the newspaper Stars and Stripes.

When he returned to California, he pursued the idea of commercial photography as a career. Say's work brought him in contact with art directors and designers, who were often impressed with his ability to sketch out ideas before committing them to film.

It was the encouragement of these people that led Say to freelance as an illustrator. His first book, Dr. For the next ten years, Say continued to alternate writing and illustrating with his photography.

In , Say published his only novel to date, The Ink-Keeper's Apprentice , which is essentially an autobiography of the period when he realized he wanted to be an artist.

At home, his parents spoke English to each other but Japanese to him. His mother taught him to read before he started school, and he read comic books to other children, which inspired him to draw and tell stories. It was the first of almost forty moves that Say would make in his life. The house in Yokohama was destroyed, and the family moved to Kyushu, where his father found work.

Morita, was the first of several teachers who encouraged him as an artist. It was there that he first encountered the work of Noro Shinpei, a popular cartoonist. In Tokyo, Say saw a Vincent van Gogh exhibit that influenced his art. He asked fifteen-year-old Allen if he wanted to go to America to make a name for himself. At sixteen, Say arrived in Long Beach, California, with ten dollars from his father.

A family friend drove him to the Harding Military Academy in Glendora, where he worked for his room and board and learned how to drive. He left school after a year and enrolled in a high school in Azusa, where teachers once again encouraged his artistic work.

On a trip to Yokohama to visit his family, he realized the similarities between him and Kyusuke, his cartoon self. Home of the Brave. Music for Alice. River Dream. Under the Cherry Blossom Tree. Stranger in the Mirror. Grandfather's Journey Read-aloud. The Boy of the Three-Year Nap. Want the latest Email Address. A Publishers Weekly critic called Allison a "subtle, sensitive probing of international adoption," concluding that it will encourage "thoughtful adult-child dialogue on a potentially difficult issue.

With Tea with Milk Say returns to personal history, telling the story of his mother, brought up near San Francisco and uprooted after high school to return to her parents' Japanese homeland. In Say's book the young woman, Masako, feels out of place and foreign, but she soon meets a young man who prefers tea with milk, just as she does.

A Publishers Weekly reviewer commented: "Through choice words and scrupulously choreographed paintings, Say's story communicates both the heart's yearning for individuality and freedom and how love and friendship can bridge cultural chasms. Say's books have continued to explore similar, sometimes sophisticated, themes, depicting individuals who experience dislocation and setbacks, but who then find a new path, often empowered by small opportunities to make large changes.

In Music for Alice , based on a true story, a young Japanese-American couple find a way to avoid internment but in the process lose everything. Living out the war on an abandoned farm, they eventually turn to their love of gladiolas to create a new, stable life. The Sign Painter follows a young boy as he wrestles with the choice between following his dream of becoming an artist and opting for a more stable life, a choice similar to that faced by the author many years before.

Praising Music for Alice , a Kirkus Reviews contributor noted that through his "exquisite paintings" Say presents "a moving testament to a life of hard work and dreams … that find fulfillment in unanticipated ways.

For Say, each book that he undertakes continues to represent a personal journey, but each work also gives space to the reader, whether young or old, and allows for new interpretations based on others' experiences.

As the artist explained to a Publishers Weekly interviewer, "When I work on a book, I don't have a particular audience in mind. But it's been my experience that if I develop an idea as well as I can, both adults and youngsters seem to get something out of it, and that's the best I can ask for.

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books , September, , p. Burke, "Conversation: Allen Say," p. Burke, review of Grandfather's Journey , p. Horn Book , March-April, , pp. Marcus, "Rearrangement of Memory" interview , pp.

Publishers Weekly , August 23, , review of Grandfather's Journey , p. Seyboldt, review of The Feast of the Lanterns , p. Sidorsky, review of The Lost Lake , p. Marton, review of Grandfather's Journey , p. Allison , Houghton Boston, MA , Ina R. Sidelights Allen Say is an author and illustrator of children's books who is noted for his "masterfully executed watercolors," according to a Publishers Weekly reviewer appraising Say's work, Tea with Milk.