03 Mar / The Ink-Keeper’s Apprentice by Allen Say [in What Do I Read Next? Multicultural Literature]
Determined to become an artist, young Sei Koichi convinces the famous cartoonist Noro Shinpei to take him on as an apprentice. Under Sensei’s (Japanese for “teacher”) nurturing tutelage, he receives a new name, Kiyoi, and comes of age with a growing independence in postwar Japan.
Apprentice is an autobiographical novel based on Caldecott Medal-winning Allen Say’s own boyhood in Japan (Say’s mother is Japanese, his father ethnically Korean adopted by British parents); it was first published in 1979 and reissued in 1994.
Review: “Asian American Titles,” What Do I Read Next? Multicultural Literature, Gale Research, 1997
Readers: Middle Grade, Young Adult
Published: 1979, 1994