The Nostoi of Two Acclaimed Immigrant Picturebook Creators

Peter Sís and Allen Say are two acclaimed immigrant picturebook creators who travelled illuminating Odysseys, setting sail on boats of image and text. Only a few years after the end of World War II, Caldecott Medal winner Allen Say emigrated to the US from Japan. And during the Cold War, Hans Christian Andersen Award winner Peter Sís fled to the US from the Communist regime of former Czechoslovakia. Even though they came from different cultures, geographies, generations, and emigration experiences, both immigrant artists turned to art to negotiate their yearning for nostos (returning home), solace, and identity. Their negotiation of the paradoxes of nostalgia led them on similar paths: valuing the imagined, reconstructing their homelands and childhoods through and within art, and forming their identity by building on their self-image as artists. Their highly autobiographical picturebooks show us how healing, home, and identity may be found in Art and Story.