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    Tea with Milk
    Tea with Milk
    Tea with Milk
    Ebook36 pages8 minutes

    Tea with Milk

    By Allen Say

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    With elegant watercolors, Allen Say's beautiful picture book is a moving tribute to his parents and their path to discovering where home really is.

    At home in San Francisco, May speaks Japanese and the family eats rice and miso soup and drinks green tea. When she visits her friends’ homes, she eats fried chicken and spaghetti.

    May plans someday to go to college and live in an apartment of her own. But when her family moves back to Japan, she soon feels lost and homesick for America.

    In Japan everyone calls her by her Japanese name, Masako. She has to wear kimonos and sit on the floor. Poor May is sure that she will never feel at home in this country. Eventually May is expected to marry and a matchmaker is hired.

    Outraged at the thought, May sets out to find her own way in the big city of Osaka. The accompanying story of his mother and her journey as a young woman is heartfelt. Tea with Milk vividly portrays the graceful formality of Japan and captures the struggle between two cultures as May strives to live out her own life.

    Alongside his Caldecott Medal-winning Grandfather’s Journey, in Tea with Milk, master storyteller Allen Say continues to chronicle his family’s history between Japan and California.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateMay 4, 2009
    ISBN9780547350455
    Tea with Milk
    Author

    Allen Say

    Allen Say was born in Yokohama, Japan, and came to the United States when he was sixteen. His many treasured books for children include Tree of Cranes, Allison, and the Caldecott Medal–winning Grandfather's Journey. He lives in Portland, Oregon.

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    Reviews for Tea with Milk

    4/5

    84 ratings15 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Raised in San Francisco by immigrant parents, May is unprepared for life in Japan when her family decide to return to their homeland. Now known as Masako, her dreams of college are dashed, as she is forced to attend high school a second time, in order to learn Japanese. Treated as a foreigner by her classmates, she has trouble making friends, or even finding someone who will speak with her. Her parents, in the meantime, arrange for the services of a matchmaker, despite Masako's declaration that she would rather have a turtle than a husband. Deciding that she must strike out on her own, she moves to Osaka and gets a job in a department store, eventually meeting a young man who, like herself, feels like a fish out of water...In this biographical picture-book, celebrated Japanese-American children's author and artist Allen Say, who won the Caldecott Medal in 1994 for his Grandfather's Journey, chronicles the story of his mother's life. His depiction, in both text and image, of her sense of displacement upon her family's return to Japan, is immensely poignant, deftly capturing her loneliness and dismay. As is often the case with Say's work, the artwork in Tea with Milk is just lovely, with a luminous quality that makes the image truly shine. Say knows how to play with color and light, always producing art that really draws the reader in. I particularly liked the image of Masako in her kimono at the department store, as well as the final image of Masako and Joseph - Allen Say's parents! Recommended to fans of the artist, as well as to anyone looking for children's stories about moving, immigration, and feeling like a stranger in a strange land.
    • 4/5
      A Japanese American is brought back to Japan with her parents in her late teens. She hates the customs of Japan, especially the roles and expectations for women. She ends up realizing that she can make happiness wherever she lives and remains true to herself, even in Japan.

      This narratives subtly addresses themes such as feminism (in a good way), being yourself, and making the best of your circumstances (adapting). The protagonist is a surprising heroine, especially to girls, even though she's not in any way famous. She refuses to be trapped by stereotypes and cultural norms, and chooses the path her parents would have wanted her to, anyway (marrying, staying in Japan, wearing Kimonos), on her own terms.

    • 5/5
      this is a great book for to illustrate multicultural customs and ways. A young girl named May is returned to Japan after completing high school in America and is left feeling as an outsider in the land her parents call home. May must learn the customs and culture of her heritage and wonders where she belongs. Great story for 4-6 grades.
    • 4/5
      This could be a great book for a multicultural lesson. It could also serve as a book to read on diversity to show students that people can be different and the same as each other. The reading level is a 3.5.
    • 5/5
      Truly an amazing book with an interesting main character. Masako is a person who I really enjoyed because she tries so hard to accomplish her dreams. It made me happy to feel her emotions as the story progressed. As a person who loves Japan, I was glad to see that some racism issues were in the story as I think that is part of a culture that people should see. The pictures in the book were also really good. They showed off Japan in the way it should be shown. Really good book.
    • 4/5
      A great companion piece to use with "Grandfather's Journey." This is the story of Allen Say's mother. She is raised in California but her parents move her to Japan after she graduates high school. She is treated like a foreigner because she doesn't really speak the language and doesn't understand the customs. Beautiful illustrations.
    • 4/5
      What an incredible artist! This is yet another story based on Allen's life and the immigration experience of his grandparents and parents.The images are soft and beautiful. They make me want to slowly drift into the book and sit at the sideline watching the slow, every day pace of Allen's family.This is the story of May (Allen's mother) who lived in California. Missing Japan, her family moved back when May was a teen aged young, beautiful lady.The difference in cultures is severe and May has a difficult time adjusting. Subservience is not in her personality. She is very independent and finds living in rural Japan very binding and too traditional.Moving into a large city and finding a job in a department store, she eventually meets a Japanese man who speaks English.Slowly they develop a relationship and marry.
    • 4/5
      I enjoyed the mix of cultural diversity and a resourceful teenage girl in this story. Lovely illustrations, to boot! Would give it 4.5 stars if I could.
    • 4/5
      This was another of the stories that in some way relates back to the author's family history. I love these books. It really brings to light another angle in the U.S. immigration and emigration stories. Allen Say is so talented and any book he creates seems to exude that confident storytelling that readers love. Great book.
    • 5/5
      The chance meeting between American born May and Japanese native Joseph, which coincidentally leads to the birth of the author, makes for a warm and heartfelt children's book which highlights the importance of being yourself. One aspect of Say's books that I find extremely appealing is that each story seems to be rooted in reality and showcase growth through adversity.
    • 5/5
      Great book- beautiful illustrations, and an interesting story line. Teaches of a different time period's and different cultured expectations.
    • 5/5
      I fell in love with Allen Say's paintings in his book Grandfather's Journey. Tea picks up more of that story. When Grandfather takes his family to return to Japan, his daughter, May, finds herself very homesick for San Francisco, and misses her American friends and customs, including tea with milk and sugar. This is another lovely book, sparsely written, but poignant. (4.3 stars)
    • 4/5
      Tea with Milk is a beautifully illustrated recounting of his parents meeting. The story begins in San Francisco, where May, lives with her parents. They decide to move to Japan and May becomes a foreigner in her parents' home country. May finds a way to integrate and make herself a home.
    • 3/5
      Touching story of a young girl who becomes a foreigner in her home country when her parents return to Japan after living in the US.
    • 5/5
      great book on diversity and fitting in.

    Book preview

    Tea with Milk - Allen Say

    Cover: Tea with milk by Allen Say. The cover image features Masako in a school uniform, standing on the side of her empty schoolyard with a book. The comment from School Library Journal under the cover image reads, ‘Say’s many fans will be thrilled to have another episode in his family saga.”Title page: Tea with milk by Allen Say. Published by Sandpiper, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston, New York. The photograph on the title page features Masako, as a young girl, holding a doll stroller with a doll in it.

    Contents

    Cover

    Title Page

    Contents

    Copyright

    Dedication

    Begin Reading

    About the Author

    Connect with HMH on Social Media

    Copyright

    Copyright © 1999 by Allen Say

    All rights reserved. Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 1999.

    For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to trade.permissions@hmhco.com or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

    hmhbooks.com

    Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

    Say, Allen.

    Tea with milk / by Allen Say.

    p. cm.

    Summary: After growing up near San Francisco,

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