The Snail
Award-winning illustrator Emily Hughes offers a luminous picture book about the life of renowned Japanese American artist Isamu Noguchi.
Isamu Noguchi is one of the most important sculptors of all time. His Akari lamps changed the way modern buildings light their space. But before he was important, he was a kid. This is his story.
Noguchi was a Japanese American artist who gave the world light. The world, however, was not always so giving in return. Growing up mixed-race, born in the United States but raised in Japan, Noguchi found himself perceived as an outsider who did not belong in either country. Unable to identify fully as either Japanese or American, he conceived of himself as a snail, capable of retreating into his creative shell when the world did not embrace him.
Through his art, the Snail could shape, hold, and create light--to conquer the darkness without. Poetic and searing, heart-wrenching and exquisite, Emily Hughes's paean to creativity explores emotions ravaged by a history of Japanese incarceration, the effects of personal isolation, and the power of art to heal those wounds.
RENOWNED ARTIST: Isamu Noguchi's art is everywhere. You have likely seen it without knowing he was the artist--or even that it was art!
IMPORTANT TOPIC: This book uses art and history to discuss mixed racial identity, making a difficult topic more accessible to young readers.
STUNNING VISUALS: Hughes's illustrations are rich and evocative of the grace, power, and ephemerality of nature. Light and dark, complex yet simple, her art and storytelling echo the dual identity of Noguchi himself.
PERFECT GIFT FOR ART LOVERS: The subject and the beautiful visuals make this book the ideal gift for art students, art enthusiasts, and museumgoers of all ages.
Perfect for:
- Parents and grandparents
- Fans of Isamu Noguchi
- Fans of contemporary art
- Teachers and librarians
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Publishers Weekly
Interspersed with full-color spreads that mark crucial moments in the life of sculptor Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988), diaphanous grayscale illustrations by Hughes (the Charlie and Mouse series) give this picture book a sense of visual calm. But emotion roils underneath as lines describe Noguchi, the son of a white American mother and a Japanese father, as an artist whose work was rejected by both countries. Asked as an old man to represent the U.S. in an exhibition, he declines: "America never wanted me!" Attentive spreads describe the way "Isamu felt like a snail and called himself one.... In the shell, Isamu was safe with his memories and dreams and worked with complete focus." Toggling back and forth between the figure's youth and old age, the text portrays Noguchi's feeling of profound alienation from both cultures, his shortening both his hair and his name in an attempt to fit in with peers ("No cut, no change could bring him closer to others"), and, much later, his creation of akari--"sculptures that held light within"--en route to participating in the exhibition. Though the text sometimes proves confusing, relying on abstract phrasing, Hughes pays careful attention to the surfaces of Noguchi's sculpture--the heavy grain of wood, the dark gleam of polished stone--to create a visually elegant telling. Ages 8-12. Agent: Stephen Barr, Writers House. (Nov.)
Copyright 2022 Publishers Weekly, LLC Used with permission.Review quotes
JNF053160 - Juvenile Nonfiction | Social Topics | Self-Esteem & Self-Reliance
Noguchi, Isamu
Sculptors
Japanese American sculptors
