1. “A good story should alter you in some way; it should change
your thinking, your feeling, your psyche, or the way you look at
things. A story is an abstract experience; it's rather like
venturing through a maze. When you come out of it, you
should feel slightly changed.”

2. Allen’s Background
 Allen Say was born in Yokohama, Japan, in 1937

3. Allen’s Home Life and Family Experiences
 His father, a Korean orphan raised by a British family in
Shanghai, and his mother, Japanese but American born in
Oakland, California, divorced when Say was eight. The
family separated, Say lived unhappily with his father while
his sister lived with their mother.
 At age twelve, he was sent off to Tokyo — living on his
own — to attend a prestigious school in the city. Instead,
he sought out and apprenticed himself to the famous post-
war cartoonist, Noro Shinpei, and spent the next four
years learning to draw and paint. That experience is
described first in his autobiographical novel The Ink-
Keeper's Apprentice (1996) and later in the 2011 picture book
Drawing from Memory.
 At age sixteen, Say emigrated from Japan to California
with his father.

4.  After high school graduation, Say went back to Japan,
vowing never to return to America.
 But after a year in a much-changed Japan, he returned
and worked as an apprentice to a sign painter and then
had a two-year stint in the army, stationed in Germany.
Say returned to California and for 20 years worked as a
commercial photographer.
 In 1988, Say was asked by Walter Lorraine, an editor at
Houghton Mifflin Company, to illustrate a retelling of
the Japanese folktale, The Boy of the Three-Year Nap. It
won the prestigious Caldecott Honor Award and Horn
Book Award.

5. Allen Say: Illustrator
 Boy of the Three Year Nap By: Dianne Snyder
 Illustrated by: Allen Say
 Age Level: 6-9 Reading Level:
 Taro is known for his laziness, he is also clever
and so finds a way to become wealthy. Realistic
illustrations place Taro and his mother in a long
ago Japan in this spritely retelling of a
traditional trickster tale.
 This book won the prestigious Caldecott Honor
Award and Horn Book Award. The success of
that book allowed Say to return to doing what
he really loved, full-time — writing, painting,
drawing — and it was the beginning of his
second career as a children's book author and
illustrator.

6. Say: The Illustrator continued
 How My Parents Learned to Eat By: Ina
Friedman
 Illustrated by: Allen Say
 Age Level: 6-9
 When an American sailor meets a
Japanese woman, they both try in secret
to learn the other's way of eating. Their
courtship and growing love culminates
in marriage. This realistic family story
explores cultural similarities and
differences and is told with humor and
honesty by the couple's daughter.

7. Allen Say: Successful Author
and Illustrator
 The success of Boy of the Three Year Nap allowed Say
to return to doing what he really loved, full-time —
writing, painting, drawing — and it was the beginning of
his second career as a children's book author and
illustrator.

8. Say’s Work Continues
 Since then, he has written and illustrated many
books, including Tree of Cranes, Grandfather's
Journey (winner of the 1994 Caldecott Medal), Home
of the Brave, Tea with Milk, Kamishibai Man, and
The Boy in the Garden. Many of his books have
autobiographical elements.

9.  Title: Tree of Cranes
 Author: Say, Allen
 Illustrator: Say, Allen
 Categories: Holidays, Winter
Holidays, Multicultural
 Ages: 3-5, 6-8
 Summary: As a young Japanese
boy recovers from a bad chill, his
mother busily folds origami paper
into delicate silver cranes in
preparation for the boy's very first
Christmas.

10.  Title: Grandfather's Journey
 Author: Say, Allen
 Illustrator: Say, Allen
 Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
 Categories: Multicultural
 Ages: 3-5, 6-8
 Summary: Through compelling
reminiscences of his grandfather's life in
America and Japan, Allen Say gives us a
poignant account of a family's unique cross-
cultural experience. He warmly conveys his
own love for his two countries, and the strong
and constant desire to be in both places at
once.

11.  Title: Tea with Milk
 Author: Say, Allen

 Illustrator: Say, Allen
 Categories: Multicultural
 Ages: 3-5, 6-8
 Summary At home in San Francisco, May speaks Japanese
and the family eats rice and miso soup and drinks green tea.
When she visits her friends' homes, she eats fried chicken and
spaghetti. May plans someday to go to college and live in an
apartment of her own. But when her family moves back to
Japan, she soon feels lost and homesick for America. In Japan
everyone calls her by her Japanese name, Masako. She has to
wear kimonos and sit on the floor. Poor May is sure that she
will never feel at home in this country. Eventually May is
expected to marry and a matchmaker is hired. Outraged at the
thought, May sets out to find her own way in the big city of
Osaka. With elegant watercolors reminiscent of Grandfather's
Journey, Allen Say has created a moving tribute to his parents
and their path to discovering where home really is. The
accompanying story of his mother and her journey as a young
woman is heartfelt.

12. Final Thoughts of Allen Say
 When starting a new book, I don't
have issues in my head. Most of the
time I don't know what the book is
going to be about. I start painting the
first picture, and by the time that's
done the second picture -- I call it
scene or frame -- forms in my mind.
After the fourth or fifth frame I'm
often surprised to see a story line
developing. It's a kind of pattern
recognition.
 The important thing is to put enough
stuff on the paper, then I can move
them around and begin to see a
pattern, and that's when it gets
exciting. I believe that if you know
what you are going to make before
you make it, and if comes out the way
you thought it would come out, the
finished work is worthless.

13. Bibliography
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Say
 http://www.houghtonmifflin.books.com/authors/allensay/au
 http://www.readingrockets.org/books/interviews/say/