A Boy Named Isamu: A Story of Isamu Noguchi

by James Yang

Overview

Awarded an Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature Picture Book Honor, this stunning picture book brings to life the imagination of Japanese American artist, Isamu Noguchi.

(Cover image may vary.)

If you are Isamu, stones are the most special of all.
How can they be so heavy?
Would they float if they had no weight?

Winner of the Theordor Seuss Geisel Award in 2020 for Stop! Bot!, James Yang imagines a day in the boyhood of Japanese American artist, Isamu Noguchi. Wandering through an outdoor market, through the forest, and then by the ocean, Isamu sees things through the eyes of a young artist . . .but also in a way that many children will relate. Stones look like birds. And birds look like stones.

Through colorful artwork and exquisite text, Yang translates the essence of Noguchi so that we can all begin to see as an artist sees.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780593203453
Publisher:	Penguin Young Readers Group
Publication date:	06/15/2021
Sold by:	Penguin Group
Format:	eBook
Pages:	40
Lexile:	AD500L (what's this?)
File size:	10 MB
Age Range:	3 - 7 Years

About the Author

James Yang's prize-winning work has appeared in many magazines and newspapers, including Graphis, Newsweek, Forbes, Fortune, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal. He is the author/illustrator of Stop! Bot!, Bus! Stop!, Joey and Jet, Joey and Jet in Space, and Puzzlehead. The designer of "Clockman," a sculpture on display at the National Museum of American History, Mr. Yang and his wife live in New York City.

Editorial Reviews

★ 04/12/2021

Miniature, toy-like images by Geisel Medalist Yang (Stop! Bot!) follow a solitary boy who’s drawn to nature’s elemental forms. He’s based on the sculptor Isamu Noguchi (1904–1988), but readers needn’t have that context to take pleasure in this story. In a second-person telling that places readers right in the moment, Isamu is at the market in Japan with his mother, off at the edge of the action: “Maybe there is a quiet space that feels more like you,” the text reads. Wandering beyond a group of children who play loudly, Isamu walks, asking questions: “Why does cloth feel soft? Who made the path with stone?... How can light feel so welcoming?” In the forest, he sees leaves, grass, and more stones (“If you are Isamu, stones are the most special of all”), then finds his way to the quiet rumble of the ocean. “Isamu! There you are!” his mother cries, reaching for an embrace—when she asks about his day, “You think about how you were/ alone but not lonely.” Less a biography than an attentive, balanced study of an artist’s sensibility, this story ends with an author’s note about Noguchi, who believed that “when an artist stopped being a child, he would stop being an artist.” Ages 3–7. (June)

Publishers Weekly

★ “A marvel of prose, illustration, and design that invites repeated meditation.” — Kirkus (starred review)

★ “[A]n attentive, balanced study of an artist’s sensibility.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)

★ “Yang (Stop! Bot!, 2019) renders this imagined biography of Japanese American Isamu Noguchi with the utmost tenderness… This lyrical biography will resonate with creative types of all ages and can easily be incorporated into a curriculum as a springboard for writing, research, and art projects.” — Booklist (starred review)

★ “Yang's lyrical writing and rich vocabulary reads well aloud while providing thoughts to further ponder and discuss, especially for readers in today's busy, noisy world. Though produced in picture book format, the concepts—the need for quiet, introspection, and beauty in nature—will resonate across many grade levels. This is a book for all ages.” 
— School Library Connection (starred review)

★ “Yang’s text meets child readers on their own level, framing the natural world as a source of curiosity and delight. His digital illustrations feel warm and organic…The book works as both an introduction to a fascinating artist and a tribute to the quiet joys of the natural world.” — The Horn Book (starred review)

From the Publisher

07/01/2021

Gr 1–3—In tribute to Japanese American sculptor Noguchi—or, more precisely, his distinctive vision and affinity for natural forms—Yang portrays an introspective child, Isamu, in Japan who steps away while his mother is shopping to seek out quiet places. In a sparely told slow-growth epiphany young Isamu comes to appreciate shapes of leaves and twigs in a park, how every stone large or small is unique in form and character…and at last how what he sees and touches seemed to be waiting for him, as if "forest and beach were like friends giving you a gift." Along with plenty of white space to reflect the narrative's quiet tone the illustrations feature a small, button-eyed figure with black hair and pale skin taking a wandering course past boulders, bamboo stalks, and undulating shorelines that evoke or are even directly modeled after the artist's own works. Readers will get a fuller picture of Noguchi's life from Christy Hale's The East-West House, but Yang notes the connection he shares with the artist, that "alone time" as "the most special time of all." VERDICT Reflective young readers will come away with a deeper feeling for one artist's work, and also how encounters with nature can spark creativity.—John Peters, Children's Literature Consultant, NY

School Library Journal

★ 2021-05-05
If you were a boy named Isamu…what would you learn about your world?

Beginning with the whimsical jacket design that’s echoed in the shapes, colors, and prose that follow, readers are encouraged to experience finding their own voices in quiet spaces. Isamu, a young boy with beige skin and black hair, feels overwhelmed in the crowded and noisy market—a patchwork of stalls, merchandise, and people. Instead he seeks out colorful paper lanterns, a still wood where leaves crunch, a field of grass, a rocky beach, and more. Using the second person, the narrator invites readers to imagine themselves as Isamu, asking his questions and immersing himself in the natural world using his senses. Whimsy is woven throughout, appearing even in a large gray stone with a face that is echoed on the dust jacket. Colorful lines of all forms dominate the design of the spreads—straight bamboo stalks, rounded stones that look like birds, a wavy outline in rock that frames the sea—all carefully rendered in bold colors balanced by plenty of white space. Yang depicts Isamu in proportion with his wonder at the world, by turns prominent and peripheral. The author’s note explains how Isamu Noguchi’s biracial background (his father was Japanese and his mother was a White American) led to ostracization in both Japan and the United States, prompting him to seek out safe, natural spaces that eventually inspired his artwork, based in stone and wood. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

A marvel of prose, illustration, and design that invites repeated meditation. (Picture book. 4-8)

Kirkus Reviews