Christy Hale,
The East-West House: Noguchi's Childhood in Japan
Lee & Low, 2009.

Ages 6-11

Well-known illustrator Christy Hale, an arts educator used to introducing children to artists through Instructor magazine’s Masterpiece of the Month series, provides text and illustration for The East-West House, her book about renowned sculptor Isamu Noguchi. Her story demonstrates how the inspiration of nature and Isamu’s childhood in Japan with his American mother contributed to his beautiful and varied work.

An introductory page gives some background: poet Yone Noguchi met editor and teacher Leonie Gilmour in New York, where Leonie helped Yone with his English. “The two worked well together, and soon a romance developed.” But suddenly Yone returned to Japan, leaving Leonie to give birth and raise their son, Isamu, alone.

In 1907, when Isamu was 2, mother and son traveled to Japan, where Leonie discovered that Yone had another family. Nevertheless, she and Isamu (which means “courageous” in Japanese) remained in the country until the boy was 13. Hale’s lovely images depict the beauty and isolation of their life together as foreigners in Meiji-era Japan. Yone was not part of their life, but Leonie encouraged her son’s artistic bent. When he was 8, she bought property in a beautiful seaside area near Tokyo, and precocious Isamu planned the house that gives Hale’s book its title, “…a small distinctive house./Half Eastern, half Western in design/it was a mixture like his own.” When it was finished, the boy, who had been apprenticed to a carpenter, “…sculpted waves in cherry wood./Carved panels for the sliding doors/that moved from east to west, and back again.”

Hale employs many elements of traditional Japanese design in the book, including large-flake snows, cherry blossoms, the maple leaf, and fabric patterns for carpenters’ jackets. Often incorporating torn handmade papers, she captures the tender relations between Leonie and Isamu, sitting by a stream or reading Greek myths, as his artistic sensibility grew. “He molded clay to form a wave/then painted it blue like Mama’s eyes.”

At the back of the book is a three-page biography of Isamu’s life, with photographs of his family, the east-west house he helped design, and his mature work. Hale’s text is not quite as accomplished as her exquisite illustrations, but children will be drawn into her story by its compelling images and endearing characters.

Charlotte Richardson
October 2009