BIBLIOGRAPHY
Say, Allen. 1999. Tea with milk. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0-395-90495-1
SUMMARY
May lives in San Francisco California and is used to eating pancakes and fried chicken and drinking tea with milk with her friends. She is not happy when her parents decide to move to Japan, where she'll be known as Masako and will have to redo high school so she can learn the Japanese language. She'll have to drink green tea without milk and her mother will arrange a marriage for her. May just wants to go to college and live on her own! At first, she's miserable in Japan, but then she meets, Joseph, who studied at an English school in Shangai, and who also likes his tea with milk.
CRITICAL ANALYSIS
Caldecott medalist Allen Say has created a poignant and beautiful book that is based upon his parents life. Say grew up going back and forth between America and Japan and bases this story on his and his parent's experiences. Say expresses the homesickness many feel when leaving their home and the confusion of living in a new culture. However, May and Joseph decide that if "you have certain things, ...one place is as good as any other."
Say started his career in photography and his watercolor paintings are so realistic they look like photographs. There is a sense of distance and loneliness in the illustrations which are beautifully rendered.
Tea with milk was nominated as a Riverbank Review Book of Distinction, a Bulletin Blue Ribbon, a School Library Journal Best Book and an American Library Association Notable Book.
Recommended for Grades K-6.
REVIEWS
Say's masterfully executed watercolors tell as much of this story about a young woman's challenging transition from America to Japan as his eloquent, economical prose....With his characteristic subtlety, Say sets off his cultural metaphor from the very start, contrasting the green tea Masako has for breakfast in her home, with the "tea with milk and sugar" she drinks at her friends' houses in America...Whether the subject is food... or the deeper issues of ostracism...and gender expectations, Say provides gentle insights into human nature as well as East-West cultural differences. His exquisite, spare portraits convey emotions that lie close to the surface and flow easily from page to reader: with views of Masako's slumping posture and mask-like face as she dons her first kimono, or alone in the schoolyard, it's easy to sense her dejection. 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. --Publisher's Weekly
"...The poignant story is accompanied by Say's glorious paintings that look like photographs from a family album. They beautifully capture the setting and the emotions."--Children's Literature
"...This perfect marriage of artwork and text offers readers a window into a different place and time."--Library Journal
"...Say explores familiar themes of cultural connection and disconnection...The pages are filled with detailed drawings featuring Japanese architecture and clothing, and because of the artist's mastery at drawing figures, the people come to life as authentic and sympathetic characters. This is a thoughtful and poignant book that will appeal to a wide range of readers, particularly our nation's many immigrants who grapple with some of the same challenges...including feeling at home in a place that is not their own.--School Library Journal
"...Say continues to explore the ways that differing cultures can harmonize...Painted with characteristic control and restraint, Say's illustrations, largely portraits, begin with a sepia view of a sullen child in a kimono, gradually take on distinct, subdued color, and end with a formal shot of the smiling young couple in Western dress..."--Kirkus Reviews
CONNECTIONS
-This is a very interesting and beautifully spoken acceptance speech for the Caldecott Medal. Although too advanced for young children, have a teacher read and absorb the main ideas and talk to students about dreams, reality, and never being too old to do something you love.
http://www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com/authors/allensay/articlespeech.shtml
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