In this the last post in our Authors Remember their Grandparents series, we welcome author Trina Saffioti, whose recently published picture book Stolen Girl (Magabala Books, 2011) is our current Book of the Month. Illustrated by Norma MacDonald it is the story of an unnamed girl whose experiences as a child of the Stolen Generation of Australian Aboriginal children are based on what Trina imagines may have happened to her own grandmother.

Trina is also the author of The Old Frangipani Tree at Flying Fish Point. Descended from the Gugu Yulangi people of Far North Queensland, her writing is influenced by the stories her mother and grandmother used to tell her as she was growing up. Trina lives in Wellington, New Zealand.

My Grandmother

My grandparents were very different. On my mother’s side my Indian and Muslim grandfather died when my mother was very young and her memories of him are few. Her mother, my grandmother, was Australian Aboriginal, Kanaka (Melanesian), and Chinese. My grandmother was a devout Christian and I am amazed by what I consider her bravery and devotion in marrying a man of another faith in what would have been the 1940s. She was a real trailblazer in other ways. I remember her as a very short, very dark-skinned old lady. She had a wonderful singing voice and she sang in the Orpheus Choir in Innisfail, North Queensland. We have a photo from the 1970s of her singing with the choir and you see hundreds of white faces and then this one black face.

She deliberately raised her children away from what she felt were negative influences (drinking, gambling) in the community. She was very strict with a lot of rules. We always had to use a tablecloth; you couldn’t just spread jam out of the jar at the table: it needed to be transferred to a special dish. Always cups and saucers, never mugs, and plates and cutlery always – even for takeaways. We always had to dress up for church. When Granny came to visit us in New Zealand, we would sit at the table eating nicely and sitting up straight, and go to church smartly dressed – and as soon as she returned to Australia, we would revert to our uncivilised ways, eating in front of the television when my mother would allow it, going to church in t-shirts and jeans, slurping out of mugs and (my favourite) drinking cordial straight out of the jug. Drinking cordial straight out of the jug is trickier than it sounds as you have to be both sneaky and silent to avoid making any noise when opening the fridge door. It couldn’t be risked when Granny was around because a) she had eyes in the back of her head, and b) she would’ve had a heart attack if she had seen me swigging away at the jug.

Granny loved shopping and beautiful things. She could be sick in bed all week but on pension day my teenage cousins had to take her to the shops. She would be waiting on a chair at the end of the drive.

She was also a storyteller and told me the traditional Aboriginal Dreamtime stories but also family stories, sometimes with a bit of embellishment. She kept her cards very close to her chest and was very fearful of people in authority. We knew very little of her story and her past right up until she died and even now we only know fragments. We know that she spent a period of time away from her mother, and that and other factors indicate that she was one of the Stolen Generation who were forcibly taken from their parents by the Australian government in the belief that they would receive a better upbringing in State care. I don’t know why she kept so much from us but I imagine it was to protect us because I know she always wanted the best for us.

Trina Saffioti

Several of author and illustrator Leyla Torres‘ picture books hone in on the relationship between children and their grandparents and we are delighted to welcome her to PaperTigers with some memories of her own grandmother especially. Take a look also at our Gallery featuring Leyla’s work, in which you can see illustrations from Saturday Sancocho, The Kite Festival and Liliana’s Grandmothers (all published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux and available in English and Spanish). Visit Leyla’s website and blog (also, don’t miss out on her amazing origami blogs, old and new…).

Outdoor Markets, My Grandmother and Me

My book Saturday Sancocho was inspired by my love of outdoor markets in Latin America and also as a tribute to my paternal grandparents, whose names were the same as the characters in the book, Ana and Angelino.

As a child, I went with my grandmother to the outdoor market in her town many times. To be honest, at that time I disliked it because of the large amount of time it took her asking for discounts and haggling with vendors under the hot tropical sun.

Despite this, I grew up to love visiting outdoor markets, and I always remember my grandmother with pride and appreciation. She was a very strong-willed country woman who raised nine children and motivated them to study and succeed. Without her vision, none in the family would have explored distant horizons, which have turned out to be rewarding for all.

Leyla Torres

Continuing our Authors Remember Their Grandparents series, today we welcome Elisa Kleven to the PaperTigers blog with a beautiful piece about her grandmother.

Elisa has illustrated two picture books that are about a little girl Rosalba and her grandmother – Abuela and Isla, both written by Arthur Dorros (Dutton Juvenile 1991 and 1995). These are magical stories in which Rosalba and Abuela fly hand-in-hand over New York (Abuela) and over the Caribbean island where Abuela grew up (Isla), powered, as it were, by the flights their imaginations take thanks to the stories that Abuela tells and Rosalba loves.

And, as Elisa pointed out to me, “Two other of my own stories that mention grandmas are The Apple Doll, when Lizzy’s mom tells her that her own mom taught her how to make an apple doll, and my very early book, Ernst, which features a kind, loving crocodilian grandmother.”

Elisa has two books due out later this year, her own The Friendship Wish (Dutton Juvenile, due October 2011), and One Little Chicken written by Elka Weber (Tricycle Press, due August 2011), which she says, “takes place in a little Jewish village, probably something like a prettified, peaceful version of my grandma’s.” Her grandmother’s influence on her work becomes very clear in her piece below, and once you’ve read it, I’m sure you’ll be as glad as I am to know that Elisa is now working on a new picture book about her Grandma Eva, for she sounds a very remarkable person.

To find out more about Elisa’s work, visit our Gallery and read her interview with PaperTigers – and visit her website.

My Grandma Eva (and what she found in clay)

My mother’s mother, the aptly named Eva Art, was a sculptor whose magical ability to conjure vivid people and animals from clay has colored my own world view. Delicate, quick to laugh, sensitive as a bird, Grandma Eva could also be deeply melancholy. She didn’t like to talk about her past. When I would beg her to tell me stories about her childhood in a little Jewish village in Ukraine her mouth would tighten into a sad, tense line.

This much I knew: she was sent at age fourteen with her sixteen-year-old sister to work with relatives in a tailor shop in America, and she never again saw her parents or seven brothers – all lost to anti-Semitic violence.

Her sculptures, however, tell many stories. She discovered her gift almost by accident: as a fourth grader, my mom received the assignment given to all California public school children, then and now, which was to make a miniature model of a California Spanish Mission. Excited by the challenge, Grandma helped my mother carve a tiny mission from a bar of Ivory Soap – and hooray! – her passion for sculpting was born.

Grandma quickly moved from mission-making in soap to shaping figures with clay. As she worked her fingers through the oozy, cool clay, she re-created her long-lost friends and relatives, forming their likenesses until they emerged into the light of her work space. And there they were again, just as she remembered them, hugging their children, reading their books, patiently knitting their socks.

Grandma Eva was creative in the deepest sense – able to turn loss and nothingness into tender beauty and life. Her vision, like my mother’s (another artist and another story), inspires and shines through my own work, both as a collage artist and a children’s author. A common theme in my stories is the power of art and imagination to fill the empty places made by loss, and the power of artists, however young or small, to create something from nothing, to transform old into new, and familiar into fantastical: to turn a puddle into a shimmering treasure, a piece of paper into a princess, a broken tail into a bird, a dried apple into a comforting friend. Although neither my mother nor my grandma lived to see any of my books, I feel their spirits guiding my fingers, inspiring my vision, each day as I go on my way.

Elisa Kleven

…a special thank you, Elisa, not only for sharing your special memories with us, but also for the photographs of your Grandma Eva and some of her beautiful sculptures.

Author Kashmira Sheth has written two beautiful picture-books that focus on children’s relationship with their grandparents: My Dadima Wears a Sari and Monsoon Afternoon (Peachtree Publishers 2007 and 2008). They are both illustrated by Yoshiko Jaeggi and, in fact, work together as a balanced pair, since My Dadima Wears a Sari is about a little girl Rupa and her grandmother, who shows her a myriad of imaginative uses for a sari beyond simply wearing it; and Monsoon Afternoon tells the story of a little boy who is able to rely on his Dadaji out of all his family to play with him under the monsoon. The books also highlight the importance for children of not only being able to trust unquestionably in that special gift of grandparents to devote time to their grandchildren without deadlines or chores getting in the way, but also to pass on those small details of a personal family history that provide roots and grounding for a child.

We are delighted to welcome Kashmira to the Papertigers blog as part of our Authors Remember their Grandparents series. You can also read our 2010 interview with Kashmira and visit her website to find out about all her books.

Waterfall

I called my grandfather the same name as my mother called him, Bapuji. Bapuji means father. I don’t know why I didn’t call him Dadaji. It could be because I had a great grandfather whom I called Dadaji. I lived with my grandparents and great grandfather until I was eight so I have many wonderful memories of them.

One of my earliest memories with Bapuji never fails to bring a smile to my face. I must have been six or seven years old when we went to visit a temple in a town called Gadhda, located on Ghalo River. After visiting the temple, we went to Ghalo River. I don’t remember what month it was, but as grass, shrubs, and trees around the river were lush and thick, it might have been monsoon season or just after.

We walked along the banks until we came to a small waterfall. My grandparents, my uncle, cousins, and my mom all took a dip in the water. I, who had never had a shower, but had only taken baths with a bucket of water, was thrilled by the misty spray. I walked closer to the waterfall. Suddenly, Bapuji scooped me up. With his outstretched hands he placed me on a stone ledge. It was as if he had offered me to the waterfall!

On the ledge the water was more than a mist now. It was a powerful shower that soaked me. I was excited and scared at the same time. He took me back to the river bank and I begged, “Farithi, again.”

He did it again and again.

I don’t remember anything else about that trip—just his placing me under the waterfall, my begging for more, and his complying.

Bapuji died a long time ago. Often, when I think of him, I close my eyes. Time melts away and I become a young girl under the waterfall again. When I do that, it is not only that memory but also his love that showers me.

Kashmira Sheth

Continuing our Authors Remember Their Grandparents series, today we welcome author and illustrator Yuyi Morales to PaperTigers with a poignant piece about her Grandpa Felix.

Yuyi’s most recent book is Ladder to the Moon, written by Maya Soetoro-Ng (Candlewick Press/Walker Books, 2011). It is the story of a little girl Suhaila whose wish that she could know her grandmother is granted one night, when a golden ladder appears with Grandma Annie, ready to take her up to the moon. Read more about the book on Yuyi’s website, and take a look at the first few pages here - gorgeous!

This is not the first time Yuyi has depicted a grandmother by any means – there is her rosy-cheeked Abuelita with hair “the color of salt” in the exuberant My Abuelita written by Tony Johnston, our current Book of the Month on the main PaperTigers website (Harcourt Children’s Books, 2009). And there are her own picture books starring Señor Calavera – Just a Minute: A Trickster Tale and Counting Book (Chronicle Books, 2003) and Just in Case: A Trickster Tale and Alphabet Book (Roaring Brook Press, 2008): we are big fans of both of them in our household and love Señor Calavera’s website.

Visit Yuyi’s PaperTigers Gallery, enjoy her wonderful interview/gasp at the images over at 7-Imp’s, and find out about all her books and her many projects on her website and blog.

Grandpa Felix

My white dress of crochet clusters like popcorn, mama made especially for me.
She also made the wings and a halo with antennas, and painted with powder my cheeks, and when I saw myself in the mirror I was a butterfly.
At school I fluttered like I was supposed to do, I ran in a circle and flapped my arms with my wings behind. But nobody looked at me.
Everybody was too busy watching the pretty white girl flap her transparent arms and shake her chamomile washed hair.
Even mama, her swollen eyes straight at me, was looking somewhere else.
Nobody cares to watch the brown that is me.
Just like nobody wants to play with a girl with baby shoes that fit the insole inside and hold my leg right so that some day I can have straight feet.
“Mama, those shoes with the golden buckle and the bow on top are so lovely,” I have been telling her every time we pass by the glass case of the shoe store.
But mama doesn’t say much anymore.
She must be tired of repeating what I already know. That I have to stick with these ugly baby shoes until… when? Until I am a grown up.
Clipity, clap, clipity, clap, went my shoes while we left school.
Pling, plong, pling, plong, went my mama’s eye tears while we walked down the street. To Grandpa Felix’s house.
He is my abuelo because mama told me so. But he doesn’t remember me.
I know it because the other day when our teacher took us to the park, and my grandpa was sitting in a chair outside his door with a red and green blanket around him, and I waved at him thinking, “Now, look, everybody, there is my grandpa waving back to me,” and all the other kids waved too because they didn’t know he was my grandpa Felix – only mine, grandpa kept waving and smiling to all the children, just the same as to me.
He doesn’t remember me, I know.
Mama told me once, that sometimes he doesn’t remember her either, even though she is his child. “How could he?” she explained, “He’s too old to be one hundred and four and remember about so many things.”
Then, that morning, while I was a butterfly, Grandpa Felix stopped remembering no more. In her eyes, my mother’s tears going pling, plong, pling, plong.

Yuyi Morales

Continuing our “Authors Remember Their Grandparents” series (you can read the first post, featuring Andrea Cheng, here) we are happy to bring you a piece by writer and storyteller F. Isabel Campoy, whose many books include the wonderful Tales our Abuelitas Told: A Hispanic Folktales Collection. Pay a visit to Isabel’s website to explore her wide-ranging work in every genre imagineable – poetry, song, theatre and non-fiction as well as her many picture-books and fiction. Read also Isabel’s Personal View We, Latinos written for PaperTigers in 2007.

Abuela Francisca

I praise humor. And wit. They are more than shades of character. In my balance they are virtues, cornerstones of a personality. I sometime boast that I inherited both from my grandmother, just to see if she would drop for me a few grains from Heaven. The salt and pepper of her soul.

One of the most frequent questions I have to answer from children when I visit their schools is precisely about her. “What does the F. mean in your name?” they ask me. And I say, “Abuela.” The tradition in Spain to name the second baby girl with the mother’s mother’s name, produced a vibrant generation of Franciscas in my family. There were all kinds of nick names to distinguish all seven cousins named Francisca. Paqui, Quica, Panchita, Paca, Fran. Because my middle name is Isabel, all throughout my childhood people called me Paquibel, and when I decided I was a grown up lady, I left my grandmother’s initial in front of Isabel as a lighthouse, to watch for me, to alert me of the new horizons. And I became F. Isabel.

She was convinced that I could love to embroider. Those were the times in which a girl started to prepare her treasure chest when she was still a child. To keep me sat by her side, she would tell me stories from folklore, changing the landscapes, the characters, and the words as she saw fit to prove her point. Red Riding Hood was lured by the wolf because at siesta time, when she was supposed to be embroidering her initials in the white sheets for her wedding bed, she instead insisted on going to visit her abuela.

My grandmother Francisca gave me the F. of a fabulous treasure of stories to retell to children. The F. of a fantastic vision of what’s important in life. She gave me the F. of family to honor, friends to love, and fascination to foster freedom in the mind of children.

F. Isabel Campoy

For our current focus on children and their grandparents, we have invited authors and illustrators who have written children’s books that center on that special relationship to share with us some of their own personal memories of their grandparents. Over the next few weeks we will be posting these pieces here on the blog – and I can promise you, we’re all in for a real treat.

Our first piece comes from author Andrea Cheng, who says, “Many of my books have to do with the relationship between grandparents and grandchildren (Grandfather Counts, Goldfish and Chrysanthemums, Shanghai Messenger, Only One Year, The Key Collection). Most of these stories in some way reflect the relationship I had with my grandparents, particularly with my paternal grandmother.”

One of my favorites of Andrea’s books is Where the Steps Were, her novel in verse about a class of inner-city 3rd graders, which also references grandparents. Do watch Andrea’s short but inspiring video documentary, which shares what “a group of 3rd graders can do with just one book.” Andrea’s latest book is the newly released Where Do You Stay? (Boyd’s Mill Press). Read our 2008 interview with Andrea here, and visit her website here.

Memories of My Grandparents

My family immigrated to the US from Hungary in installments. My immediate family came first, and then my grandparents, and later my aunt, uncle, and cousin. When I was very small, we all lived together. Later my grandparents got their own apartment just behind our house. I loved going to visit them and was allowed to walk there by myself. Grandma spoiled me with my favorite palacsintas (walnut and sugar filled crepes) She let me eat them before dinner and never seemed worried that I would spoil my appetite.

Sometimes I was allowed to spend the night with my grandparents. My grandmother fixed me a special bed on the floor that I called a nest, and we played there for at least an hour before bed. She sang me Hungarian nursery rhymes, which I still know, and let me play with her plastic pop together beads. She taught me to sew clothes for my dolls. My grandfather told me stories until finally I fell asleep.

When I was about eight, my grandparents moved from Cincinnati to Chicago to join my aunt. I was heartbroken. The feelings described in The Key Collection come from this early separation.

My husband’s parents immigrated to the US from China in 1949. Unfortunately he was never able to meet any of his grandparents. Luckily my grandmother, who lived until age 95, very happily took on the role of being my husband’s adopted grandmother. Grandma knew very little about her ancestry, but she looked Asian (perhaps Mongolian since the Mongols came through Hungary centuries ago) so many people assumed she was my husband’s grandmother, not mine!

Andrea Cheng

Thank you, Andrea.

I am including this post in this week’s Poetry Friday, which is hosted by Reading Tub’s Family bookshelf – I’ll add the link later as I’m having some difficulties conecting right now…