Author's Study
Picture Book Author Author’s Name: Allen Say Biographic Information: Allen Say was born on August 28, 1937 in Yokohama, Japan. He spent the majority of his childhood living in Japan and was considered to be a shy, non-athletic child. During World War II, Allen's family was forced to move around because of the fighting on the mainland. In fact, Allen attended seven different grade schools, which made it hard for him to feel safe and secure. When the war ended, Allen's parents divorced and Allen was sent to live with his paternal grandmother. His grandmother was very strict and the whole experience was rather traumatic for young Allen. A deal was reached: Allen's grandmother paid for food and rent and Allen moved to his own apartment at age 12. Allen's life began looking up. He had always loved to draw and he was hired to work as an apprentice for a well known Japanese cartoonist by the name of Noro Shinpei. Allen worked after school and on weekends for Noro and the two developed a special friendship that is still in place today. When Say turned sixteen, his budding career in art was abruptly cut short. His father, dismayed by the lack of opportunities in postwar Japan, decided to move to America. By that time, he had acquired a new family, but asked Say if he would like to emigrate as part of that family. With no knowledge of English, but with a sense of adventure, Say left Tokyo and traveled to California. To his dismay, his father had arranged for him to be enrolled in the Harding Military Academy in Glendora, California, a dusty forty miles from where his father settled with the rest of his family, in Long Beach. As the only nonwhite student in the military school (and one who was half Japanese and half Korean in postwar California), Say was received as one would expect. He was segregated from the student body and given his own private quarters in a modified storage room. After a year at Harding, Say was expelled for smoking cigarettes in his room, and, with nowhere else to turn, he walked to the city of Azusa and enrolled himself at Citrus Union High School. There he was encouraged to pursue his art. He attended a special weekend arts program at Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles (now Cal Arts in Valencia) and classes at Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles (now in Pasadena). After graduation, Say went back to Japan, vowing never to return to America. But after a year in a much-changed Japan, he returned and worked as an apprentice to a sign painter. Finding little satisfaction in painting other people's ideas, he quit, got married, and moved to northern California, where he enrolled in the University of California at Berkeley as an architectural student. In July 1962, Say's student deferment was revoked owing to a technicality and he was drafted into the army. His next two years were spent in Germany, and after his work caught the eye of a commanding officer, he published his first work in photography in the newspaper Stars and Stripes. When he returned to California, he pursued the idea of commercial photography as a career. Say's work brought him in contact with art directors and designers, who were often impressed with his ability to sketch out ideas before committing them to film. It was the encouragement of these people that led Say to freelance as an illustrator. His first book, Dr. Smith's Safari (Harper & Row), was published in 1972, in a photo studio between shooting assignments. For the next ten years, Say continued to alternate writing and illustrating with his photography. In 1979, Say published his only novel to date, The Ink-Keeper's Apprentice, which is essentially an autobiography of the period when he realized he wanted to be an artist. In 1984, Say illustrated How My Parents Learned to Eat, written by Ina R. Friedman, but, discouraged by the color reproduction, he vowed to quit illustrating altogether.