A Face for Picasso by Ariel Henley and Seen and Unseen by Elizabeth Partridge and Lauren Tamaki

 

Last week and over the weekend, I read A Face for Picasso: Coming of Age with Crouzon Syndrome by Ariel Henley and Seen and Unseen: What Dorothea Lange, Toyo Miyatake, and Ansel Adams's Photographs Reveal About the Japanese American Incarceration by Elizabeth Partridge and Lauren Tamaki. The first book I read, A Face for Picasso, is a memoir about a girl, Ariel, and her twin sister, Zan, who were diagnosed with a rare condition called Crouzon syndrome when they were just eight months old. Throughout their childhood, Ariel and Zan went through various medical procedures alter their appearance and had to navigate life with a facial disfigurement. Although they did make friends, Ariel and Zan faced classmates who bullied and made fun of them. They also experienced a great deal of pain during surgery and recovery. Although living up to impossible beauty standards was especially difficult for them and took an emotional toll on them, Ariel and Zan demonstrated resilience and forged their own paths.

This book was such a compelling memoir to read. I had never heard of Crouzon syndrome before, so I definitely learned a lot about the condition itself while reading, but what had the most impact on me was Ariel's journey toward self-acceptance. Ariel and Zan had an incredibly challenging childhood, and it was understandable that they grew up with a lot of anger, sadness, and pain. Ariel especially had a lot of self-loathing after she found an article in Marie Claire that mentioned their faces were similar to Picasso's work, and I felt bad for her. Just that one line had a huge impact on Ariel and I wondered a little bit how her life would have been different if she had never come across that article from earlier in her life. I thought it was really awesome, though, how Ariel started a mentorship program called Girl Talk for middle school girls during the second half of her high school experience and decided to go to college away from home to become a writer. I definitely felt a sense a relief when Ariel and Zan decided that they were done with surgery, too. From that moment, I thought they could finally begin the process of emotional healing. A Face for Picasso is a profound exploration of beauty and identity and all girls and women should read it.

Then, I read Seen and Unseen, which is a nonfiction picture book that combines illustrations, photographs, and primary sources to tell the story of Japanese and Japanese Americans at Manzanar, an incarceration camp in the California desert during World War II. After the Japanese Navy attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawai'i on December 7, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered all Japanese and Japanese Americans living on the West Coast to be forcibly relocated to incarceration camps. The conditions at these camps were inhumane and the Japanese and Japanese American faced uncertain futures. During the incarceration, three photographers, Dorothea Lange, Toyo Miyatake, and Ansel Adams captured life at Manzanar. Through photography, they showed the reality of the incarceration camps.

Ever since I read George Takei's graphic memoir, They Called Us Enemy, two years ago, I've been interested in learning more about the Japanese American incarceration during World War II, and Seen and Unseen is an excellent addition to the children's literature on the topic. I absolutely loved the combination of photographs and Tamaki's illustrations. I even wanted to look for more photographs that Dorothea Lange, Toyo Miyatake, and Ansel Adams took on the Internet afterwards. I'm especially haunted by the image of Torazo Sakawye and his grandson because Torazo died in the Manzanar incarceration camp only ten months later. I also enjoyed the inclusion of primary sources whether they were documents or quotes. The backmatter provided biographies of the three photographers and great information about the history and injustice of what happened. I liked learning the author's and the illustrator's inspiration behind creating the book, too, because they both had connections to people who experienced this event in U.S. history: Partridge's godmother was Dorothea Lange and Tamaki's grandparents were incarcerated in Canada. All in all, Seen and Unseen is a remarkable choice for anyone who is interested in World War II-era history, including those who prefer nonfiction with minimal text.