Tree of Cranes by Allen Say

This story is very unusual and fun to read. Say does a good job of capturing the character because he does it from the perspective of the little boy. The water colored pictures are really wonderful. I also like that Say sets up his books to have just writing on the left and the right page completely filled with a single picture. It really does look like the picture has been snapped from a camera. The book is about a little boy who lives in Japan. He comes home to find his mother making something and is eager to know what she is doing. He thinks she is acting very strange because she is decorating a tree that she has dug up from the backyard. The mother tells him that she wants to celebrate the tradition that she has from her home of California. The very last line, the boy says, "it was my first Christmas". I like that Say leaves this detail to the very end in order to let the reader wonder what tradition the mother might be celebrating. This is another example of a person living in a place other than the country that they grew up in and feeling homesick. I think that this is a big message that Say brings up a lot in his books. That many people may look like they are from a certain place, but they could have grown up with completely different customs than they people they live around now and people need to be respectful of each others customs. It is also cool to see this family celebrating Christmas in Japan because this is not something very common to see.