A little boy, Tí (whose name means “little”), and his grandfather have arrived at a new land: “The jungle looms—a thousand voices at once. A crash of noises: all the things we couldn’t see seeing us. So loud, too much.”
The grandfather hums and listens. He tells the little boy, “This is music, and we must learn the song.”
Husband-and-wife author-illustrators Phùng Nguyên and Huỳnh Kim Liên created My Grandfather’s Song, translated by Christopher Myers. The children’s picture book presents the people as part of the land. The illustrations are grand and dramatic, with a romantic overlay. [The book itself does not explain the setting in S. Vietnam, but that is in the end notes of the picture book.]
The grandfather harvests bamboo to build a raised platform home. He tells his grandson, “The bamboo we cut is a melody we raise high as a roof.” The Earth, he notes, provides rice, fresh water, and other provisions. The illustration here shows the grandfather looking on as Tí plays with a monkey.
Listening in a new land can be a protection, the grandfather notes. In the same breath, he advises against responding in fear to the sounds of “a rustle, a creak, a slither through darkness.”
The singing is to align with the song of native—the sky, the storms, the creatures, and everything around. It is not to drown out what is already in song in nature.
Tí’s voice engages a ballad as he and his grandfather fish. As the two make a living off of the land, their voices are “a symphony of generations.”
Time has passed quickly. Little Tí is a grown man with his own family at the end of the book, and he is sharing his knowledge of song and the world around to next generations. He now has a wife and son. His grandfather “sets his heart on the water, where it flows with the tides,” and he is gone, even as he leaves his song behind.
The writing of My Grandfather’s Song is poetic, matching the bigness and wildness of the visually depicted world. The presence of spirits are suggested by the large animal shapes in nature that dwarf humanity. They seem to be overseeing humanity, perhaps in a protectionist sense.
The visual perspectives are memorable, such as an aerial view of the boy and his father arriving at their new land via small rowboat early on. Another shows a family in the foreground looking on at the arrival of the grandfather and the boy, Tí, and the water reflects an entrancingly tumultuous sky above (but with the dynamism below in the water).
The author-illustrators Phùng Nguyên and Huỳnh Kim Liên work out of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
Shalin Hai-Jew has worked in higher education for many years. She has edited dozens of nonfiction educational books and authored a dozen with a number of publishers.
