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Book Review: Allison
Allison is a young girl who just begins to realize that she does not look like her parents. Her questions are: Where do I come from? Where do I belong? Who do I belong to or with? Allan Say explores these questions through text and watercolor illustrations in this book.
The cover art is a headshot of Allison, a young Japanese American child adopted by white parents. She is beginning to go to school and out into the public world where she finds that other families are not the same as hers, and she begins to ask questions about her adoption.
The title page has a watercolor of a kitten. This is the stray kitten she finds all alone. Allison adopts the kitten and makes it part of her family in the same way that Allison’s parents have adopted her.
Each two-page spread is divided into one page of text and one page of illustration. The illustrations highlight the action and emotions in a way that matches the text on each page. The visual of Allison in her kimono holding her doll Mei-Mei that she thinks of as a sister, with her white parents behind her is very much a family photo.
Say paints with a wonderful style of realism. The works in this book tell the story in their own way. You see Allison’s light brown skin in contrast to her mother and fathers pale peach skin. Her straight black relatively short hair contrasts with her mother’s short red hair…
