The Snail

Interspersed with full-color spreads that mark crucial moments in the life of sculptor Isamu Noguchi (1904–1988), diaphanous grayscale illustrations by Hughes (the Charlie and Mouse series) give this picture book a sense of visual calm. But emotion roils underneath as lines describe Noguchi, the son of a white American mother and a Japanese father, as an artist whose work was rejected by both countries. Asked as an old man to represent the U.S. in an exhibition, he declines: “America never wanted me!” Attentive spreads describe the way “Isamu felt like a snail and called himself one.... In the shell, Isamu was safe with his memories and dreams and worked with complete focus.” Toggling back and forth between the figure’s youth and old age, the text portrays Noguchi’s feeling of profound alienation from both cultures, his shortening both his hair and his name in an attempt to fit in with peers (“No cut, no change could bring him closer to others”), and, much later, his creation of akari—“sculptures that held light within”—en route to participating in the exhibition. Though the text sometimes proves confusing, relying on abstract phrasing, Hughes pays careful attention to the surfaces of Noguchi’s sculpture—the heavy grain of wood, the dark gleam of polished stone—to create a visually elegant telling. Ages 8–12. Agent: Stephen Barr, Writers House. (Nov.)