Paper Son by Julie Leung illustrated by Chris Sasaki

 

Full title: Paper Son: The inspiring story of Tyrus Wong, immigrant and artist.

Take a look at these images from Bambi (Disney films).

"Bambi became a groundbreaking film. Audiences and critics gushed about the art - how it communicated so much by showing so little, how you could almost smell the mossy green of the woods and hear the rushing water of the brook. But in the end, Tyrus was credited only as a background artist."

One of my most favourite discoveries in recent years is the wealth of picture book biographies for young readers. Yes, they are written about famous and familiar people but the best ones allow readers to discover someone unknown.  I knew nothing about the art in Bambi or the artist who did this fabulous work. 

Tyrus Wong travelled to America from China when he was just nine years old. Tyrus arrived in the US at the time of a Federal law called the Chinese Exclusion Act. Tyrus had to change his name and memorise the contents of his forged identity papers. His real name was Wong Geng Yeo but he became Look Tai Yow and then later when he started school in Sacramento he was given a new name - Tyrus Wong. Tyrus excelled at art and so his father, who worked in very lowly jobs, saved enough money to send Tyrus to the Otis art institute. Tyrus did not abandon his Chinese heritage. He studied art from the Song Dynasty and he learned "mountains could look in the distance with a few jagged lines." 

Tyrus eventually found a job at the Disney studio but he worked as an in-betweener which meant the tedious painting of the same scene over and over with only tiny changes. Tyrus heard the studio were making Bambi and he saw a wonderful opportunity. He painted soft watercolour landscape scenes. Walt Disney loved them. Sadly Tyrus was not credited for his work but he never stopped painting - ceramics, silk scarves, murals and menus. He died in 2016 aged 106! In his later years he loved to make kites and you can see images of bright kits on the end papers of this book. Read more here. 

Here is a splendid video of the whole book. I was happy to see this presenter included the end papers and beautiful title page. This book was the winner of the American Library Association's 2021 Asian/Pacific American Award for Best Picture Book! Chris Sasaki is the perfect illustrator for this book. Here are some other books by Julie Leung.

I found another picture book about Tyrus:

Daring Darleen Queen of the Screen by Anne Nesbet

From Darling to Daring

Darleen comes from a family of movie makers. When she was younger the studio had made movies about Darling Darleen but as this story begins Darleen is now 12 and so now the movies have changed their focus to  involve danger and villains and Darleen has been transformed into Daring Darleen.

"Chases, plunges, trains, and villans - that's what the public wanted these days. The year 1914 would surely go down in history as the age of the adventure serial: a new episode every week, and tension galore!"

Darleen's uncles and bossy Aunt Shirley decide their next movie needs extra publicity so they set up a fake kidnapping outside the theatre where the latest Daring Darleen film is premiering. The family do not know that real kidnappers are also in the neighborhood and they have plans to abduct Miss Victorine Berryman who is heiress to a fortune. On the night, the kidnapping goes wrong, Darleen steps into the wrong car and the two girls find themselves in the hands of ruthless kidnappers. The plot itself would make a terrific Daring Darleen movie as we watch the two girls climb down from the seventh floor where they have been held captive. The two girls are now on the run and Darleen is desperate to help her new friend but she also needs to discover the truth about the involvement of her movie co-star Jasper Lukes - the archetypal villain:

"Jasper Lukes seemed to go out of his way to be mean. You wouldn't think so to look at him: with his golden hair and uniquely pointy little ears ... (Darleen) spent her whole childhood being teased, tripped and tormented. Five years older than Dar, and he had never yet grown out of his basic meanness. Darlene's secret theory was that Jasper Lukes's heart must be as small and pointy as his ears."

The world of silent movies is a fascinating one and in this book I made so many discoveries about the processes and film techniques used in the early 1900s.  An author note at the back of the book gives more detail about movie making during this period. It makes sense that the author is teacher of film studies.

Daring Darleen Queen of the Screen is a longish book for a middle grade reader with 354 pages and so it did take me a while to read this book but the final scenes were excellent and I did race through the final chapters. The actual book design is very good - the pages have lots of white space and font is set at an easy to read size. Listen to an audio sample from the first chapter.

Huge thanks to Beachside Bookshop and Walker Books (Australia) for giving me an advance reader copy of Daring Darleen which was published this month.

Just like Darleen—a spunky blend of darling and daring. Kirkus Star review

Film studies professor Nesbet writes her intrepid heroine with swashbuckling verve and sweet familial affection, incorporating extensive knowledge of early-20th-century film making into a well-paced, gripping tale of staying true to oneself while stretching limitations. Publishers Weekly

Read more plot details in this review by Ms Yingling writing for YA and Kids Books Central.

As a way to introduce you to Anne Nesbet you might like to take a look at my review of The Orphan Band of Springdale.

A Good Night for Shooting Zombies by Jaco Jacobs

Do you judge a book by its title?  I did for this one. Zombies did not sound like a book I wanted to read. I saw this book listed inside the back cover of A Good Day for Climbing Trees.

Then I made three discoveries. First of all I loved A Good Day for Climbing Trees by Jaco Jacobs and so I book talked it during a book week event at a small rural school. While I was talking about A Good Day for Climbing Trees one of the Year 6 students exclaimed with great excitement that she had read another book by Jaco Jacobs - A Good Night for Shooting Zombies. I was curious how this book had reached this reader in Australia (it is from South Africa) and also how a book with such an odd title could elicit such joy.

Secondly Jaco Jacobs has been nominated by IBBY in South Africa for the prestigious Hans Christian Andersen medal. As a member of IBBY Australia I am very interested in this award.  Finally I was browsing a discount book store in the city last week and I spied A Good Night for Shooting Zombies at a bargain price so I picked it up.

Last night I started to read this book and by morning it was finished.  Yes it is THAT good.

I love that the title has two meanings. The group of kids, especially Vusi, are making or shooting a movie about zombies. The final scenes in the movie involve shooting the zombies - don't worry they use toy guns and this scene is actually a wonderful celebration of community.

Martin (nickname Clucky) has lots of chickens. His dad showed him how to care for them but sadly his dad has died in a tragic accident. Martin is saving the money he gets from selling the eggs. He has an important reason for doing this. 

Vusi lives next door to Martin. Vusi does not go to school because he has Hodgkin's disease. Vusi loves watching zombie movies and so he has decided to make one of his own.

Clucky meets Vusi when Vusi's dog attacks the chickens and Kathleen (a leghorn chicken) is killed. This meeting is the beginning of an important friendship. Clucky is lonely at school because he is a clever boy who does not fit in. He does not understand why this movie is important to Vusi but he is happy to be involved. Later Chris (Christine) joins them and the action really heats up. Vusi wants to find a shed where they can film some scenes from the movie. Chris has a shed but it does contain a lot of things that belong to her brother who is in jail. When local criminals discover our team of movie makers things become very dangerous.

Spoiler alert - this is a book that ends in tragedy and yet at no time does it feel sad. Using the time they had available these young friends have made special memories for themselves and for the people they love.

One aspect of this book I really enjoyed was Clucky's obsession with numbers. He calculates precisely when things happen, how long they take and he is always calculating the numbers he encounters to check if they are happy numbers. (see page 23).

"While racing home I thought of Aunt Hantie. She said that her husband died ten years ago. That amounts to 3,652 days, if you add two days for leap years. And that amounts to 86,648 hours. How do you survive that many hours when you're as lonely as she is?"

This book has been made into a movie.  You can read about it here and see the trailer. The movie is called Nul is Nie Niks Nie. 

This book was written in 2013 and translated in 2018. Here is the Afrikaans cover:

Never too sentimental or depressing, A Good Night for Shooting Zombies strikes a perfect balance of humor and heartbreak and helps to define what friendship really means. Foreword Reviews

Death is present in both reference to Clucky’s father’s accident and Vusi’s illness, but Jacobs delicately weaves it throughout the tale in a way that both celebrates life and places importance on human connection as it affects the lives of those who remain.  An emotive and enjoyable read. Kirkus

Just like the children in The Little Wave - Martin, Vusi and Chris have complex life experiences and families. I highly recommend A Good Night for Shooting Zombies. I also recommend you look for Kaline Klatteraster's tree house by Haven Kimmel; Swashbuckler by James Moloney; The Goldfish boy by Lisa Thompson and View from the 32nd Floor by Emma Cameron which is long out of print but well worth finding even though the cover is perhaps not very appealing.