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A review by leslie_d
Here I Am by Patricia Hee Kim
5.0
Here I Am is wordless picture book, with a design familiar to comic books. A person can adopt their own language to the artwork, its sequence, and the emotions it evokes. In watching the child navigate the world about him, maybe they will see a bit of themselves in the story. The boy tries to see himself in this story he’s been thrust into. A world of sentiment is captured in that single panel of the boy touching the airplane window with the cityscape on the other side, distant and darkened like the panel itself.
I love the sequence in the airport, looking at all the different faces and then stopping and looking down into the reflective polish of the hard floor. Kim and Sánchez mind the details with just the right amount of attention. The text on the signs at the airport and in the city are a jumble of nonsensical letter combinations. The subway sequence lays frames over a transit map as the family appears mystified. The details are enough to express, but not enough to interrupt a compelling movement of panel and page.
Sánchez’s illustrations are loose line-drawing and layering of collage and pen. It’s lovely and apt. The story is one of movement, becoming, textured lives that layer and ink. I kept thinking of David Roberts, or Dave McKean’s Slog’s Dad.
The boy finds comfort in a little red seed he brings from home, both memories and new life spring up from it against a cool almost colorless palette. The seed is a lovely choice for this immigrant family being transplanted onto new soil. But the boy doesn’t plant it, and will lose it. Its loss finally gets the boy to leave his apartment and go out into his neighborhood to see and experience this new life around him. We come to understand that it is often fear that isolates us. The boy begins to find himself in his surroundings. He makes friends. Nature springing up and out amidst the urban setting.
The movement in the story from the cold hard urban surfaces and hues to warm curving planes and colors of people and nature is quiet and effective. He finds life and he can finally declare, “Here I am” (the only ‘dialogue’) it is in seeing his reflection upon the surface of water, standing on a bridge—other significant symbols in the immigrant experience.
Here I Am is cleverly done. This picture book is remarkable in many ways, but brilliant enough in the telling of an immigrant story that you’ll want to consider this one out of and in the classroom setting.
L (omphaloskepsis)
http://contemplatrix.wordpress.com/2014/06/09/here-you-go/
I love the sequence in the airport, looking at all the different faces and then stopping and looking down into the reflective polish of the hard floor. Kim and Sánchez mind the details with just the right amount of attention. The text on the signs at the airport and in the city are a jumble of nonsensical letter combinations. The subway sequence lays frames over a transit map as the family appears mystified. The details are enough to express, but not enough to interrupt a compelling movement of panel and page.
Sánchez’s illustrations are loose line-drawing and layering of collage and pen. It’s lovely and apt. The story is one of movement, becoming, textured lives that layer and ink. I kept thinking of David Roberts, or Dave McKean’s Slog’s Dad.
The boy finds comfort in a little red seed he brings from home, both memories and new life spring up from it against a cool almost colorless palette. The seed is a lovely choice for this immigrant family being transplanted onto new soil. But the boy doesn’t plant it, and will lose it. Its loss finally gets the boy to leave his apartment and go out into his neighborhood to see and experience this new life around him. We come to understand that it is often fear that isolates us. The boy begins to find himself in his surroundings. He makes friends. Nature springing up and out amidst the urban setting.
The movement in the story from the cold hard urban surfaces and hues to warm curving planes and colors of people and nature is quiet and effective. He finds life and he can finally declare, “Here I am” (the only ‘dialogue’) it is in seeing his reflection upon the surface of water, standing on a bridge—other significant symbols in the immigrant experience.
Here I Am is cleverly done. This picture book is remarkable in many ways, but brilliant enough in the telling of an immigrant story that you’ll want to consider this one out of and in the classroom setting.
L (omphaloskepsis)
http://contemplatrix.wordpress.com/2014/06/09/here-you-go/