Little Brother has just come home from school with a sunflower seedling, which he is certain will grow into an enormous flower… fingers crossed. In the meantime, it seemed the perfect opportunity to pull out the special story of Me and Mr. Mah by Andrea Spalding and beautifully illustrated by Janet Wilson (you can see some of the illustrations in the PaperTigers Gallery).

Set in Canada, this is the story of a young boy, Ian, whose world is turned upside down by his parents’ separation. He has moved with his mother to a city and his new, temporary home has nothing growing in the backyard – but there is a gap in the fence, and through it he catches a glimpse of a thriving vegetable garden. The owner of the garden, the elderly Mr Mah, has spotted him too and pushes some sunflower seeds through for Ian to plant. Gradually they become friends. They garden together, they share stories and they show each other their special boxes: Ian’s filled with sweet-smelling straw and the toy tractor just like his father’s; Mr Mah’s a beautiful Chinese lacquer box containing special memories from his much longer past. The sunflowers grow and Ian gathers seeds to take to his new home: he’s about to move again. Why, then, does he come across Mr Mah’s special box in a secondhand store some time afterwards?

This is a heart-warming story about friendship across generations, with a tiny reminder of the importance of keeping promises. Ian had become so caught up with new friends and activities once he’d settled into his permanent home, that he’d let his promise to visit Mr Mah slip. Fortunately, Mr Mah is all right but Ian gets enough of a fright not to take their friendship for granted ever again.

And one part of the story resonates particularly at this time, when we celebrate Asian Pacific Heritage Month:

“Once Mr Mah and I went for a walk through the Chinese cemetery. He told me there used to be a bone house, where the long-dead Chinese waited for their families to raise the money to send their bones back to China.
“Do they do that now?” I asked.
Mr Mah shook his head. “No. We are Canadian. We stay here.”

The new issue of PaperTigers features many books that focus on Asian Pacific Heritage Month and it would be great to hear if there are any you would recommend for reading aloud to young children too.

It’s hard to believe that it’s summer here in the UK at the moment but the sunflower seed which Son Number One planted a couple of months ago is about 30cm tall and still growing – so we may eventually have a happy ball of sunshine in our garden to counteract the rain, which may also still be falling!

Keeping watch over every millimetre of growth has been a good time to read A Place Where Sunflowers Grow, this year’s winner of the Jane Addams Book Award for Best Picture Book. It is a beautiful and poignant story about one little American girl’s experience of adjusting to being interned during the Second World War because of her Japanese heritage; the character, Mari, is based on author Amy Lee-Tai’s own mother. You can hear Amy reading extracts from the book and talking about it here.

The book is published by the independent, non-profit publishing house Children’s Book Press, whose executive editor, Dana Goldberg, has just been interviewed by Just One More Book. It’s part of their Publishers’ Showcase, a special series of interviews with children’s book publishers – well worth listening to.