Simon & Schuster to publish first Filipino picture book
“Holding On” is the first Filipino book published by Big 5 publisher Simon & Schuster in the U.S. under its Atheneum division. INQUIRER/CMQM
Lucky are expatriate Filipinos who are able to spend time with their doting grandparents, especially those in the Philippines, where they learn about their roots and reinforce their values. Even luckier are those who stay connected through the years despite the distance, with their extraordinary capacity to observe, absorb, appreciate and commend the impressions to their psyche.
New York transplants Sophia N. Lee and Isabel Roxas are among the fortunate lot. Both born in the Philippines, they have preserved those indelible moments with their grandmothers and grandaunts in a picture book set for release on August 30.
Author Sophia N. Lee is a UP alum who first wrote for fun. CONTRIBUTED
Holding On is the first Filipino American picture book to be published by big 5 publisher Simon & Schuster in the US under its Atheneum division famed for publishing literary titles for younger readers. But the book will move anyone who has or had a grandmother or esteemed elder they wish lived forever.
The work is a prescription for keeping loved ones alive and vital, ever-present and almost tangible as they shed their prime or depart this world. In brief but powerful lines, author Lee tunes in the reader to Frank Sinatra Jr. and Ella Fitzgerald alternating ballads with Basil Valdez and Nora Aunor, her “Lola’s” favorite singers.
Illustrator Isabel Roxas knows another function of the coconut. WEBSITE
Readers feel the thick air after a rousing rainfall and inhale the lusty scent of mangoes under the bemused gaze of a carabao in tropical scenes vibrantly interpreted by illustrator Isabel Roxas, Lee’s fellow New Yorker and a lola’s girl.
Each page presents the narrator as a girl, perhaps age 7, her black hair in twin long braids, eyes wide and alert as she basks in the affection of her grey-haired bespectacled grandmother during her summers in her birthland. Each awakens her senses, thanks to her grandmother’s vivacity.
Connection
“There is always singing in Lola’s house,” Lee opens the touching tableau of the family’s first and third generation bonding through music, food, and frolic.
As a family splits in the diaspora, Lola and grandchild learn to stay close together by keeping personal effects from years past. Pictures and childhood paintings become prize exhibits. A baby bottle becomes a button caddy, favorite pyjamas morph into a quilt that becomes a veritable hug for the loving elder: Ergo the book title.
“It’s so important to remember,” the author echoes Lola’s counsel.
Recurring lyrics and melodies linger in the little girl’s heart, and so do her grandmother’s wise words.
The joyful interaction seems endless, but slowly the sounds fade along with the once-unassailable memory before coming to a definitive stillness as Lola stops remembering. That’s what unlocks the gifts stored in the child’s consciousness that would, indeed, keep her and her beloved Lola together, bringing back their days of laughter and song.
Lee will take “Holding On” on a road tour across the country next month.
Road tour
“On the East Coast, we’re partnering with the Philippine Embassy in DC, with the Filipino School of New York and New Jersey in Bergenfield, NJ, and with various independent bookstores in NYC for reading and promotional events,” Lee tells INQUIRER.net.
“We’re also conducting author talks at the New York University and at The New School in New York City, as well as participating in the Filipino-American Book Festival in San Francisco this October. We’ve also partnered with California independent bookstores Philippine Expressions Bookshop and Bel Canto books, both of which are owned by Filipino American women.”
Beyond the relationship of a grandmother and grandchild, Lee says her book tackles the “power of music in Filipino culture, the value of listening to elders, building memories that stand the test of time, dealing with grief from loss, aging, and the importance of patience, kindness and of building hope and finding joy even during difficult times.”
In a climate where Asian American Pacific Islander elders are confronting race-targeted hate-motivated attacks by misinformed strangers in this country, “Holding on” offers an understanding of the aggrieved populations’ incredulity for the crimes and their deep motivation to stop and prevent such occurrences.
The book is autobiographical, the scenes composite of highlights from the collaborators’ childhood with their female role models.
Collaboration
Tarlac native Lee, winner of the 2014 Scholastic Asian Book Award for an earlier work “What Things Mean,” says she looks like her Lola Benita and inherited her love of writing from her Mama Jessie (aka Lola Josefina), a former school principal and English teacher.
Like the latter, who had spent some years in New York, Lee too is drawn to the classroom as a creative writing instructor for “kids, teens and sometimes adults too.” She put to use her MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from The New School in New York in her earlier work Soaring Saturdays and Lolo’s Sari-Sari Store, another picture book due for launch next summer.
Isabel Roxas wrote and illustrated The Adventures of Team Pom: Squid Happens. She vividly describes her upbringing as having been “raised on luscious mangoes, old wives’ tales, and monsoon moons.” From her Lola Fe and Lola Venancia she learned “how to shine the floor with a coconut, navigate a palengke, and make a scrumptious bowl of ginataan.”
Lee and Roxas only met when the book went to auction, the process in publishing when multiple offers arise, giving Lee the option to select its illustrator.
“Having it illustrated by someone of Filipino ancestry was really important to me, especially because it was the first time that Simon & Schuster was investing in a Filipino story,” Lee says.
“I wanted someone who would understand and celebrate all that I loved about the Philippines through the art in the book. Isabel was one of the names my editor sent me, and I was really glad about that.” She was “a fan,” says Roxas’ colleague.
“I had seen her work with so many big names in kid lit already, both in the Philippines and abroad. Lucky for us, she was available – I know the book is just so much better because of all the love and longing and pride for home that she put into it. The book is just so much better because of all the love and longing and pride for home that she put into it.”
Both are recent transplants: Before settling down in 2016 for her MFA,UP alum Lee and her family visited New York to spend time with her grandmother whose health precluded overseas travel. Burnished in her mind is a “New York moment” as she marveled at the “scale and grandeur of New York City” on one of those first visits in Manhattan.
“I stayed for hours in that spot, writing in my journal about how I wished I could be more than a spectator in that place,” she recalls. “I knew then that I would want to return to New York in some way. Every time I’m in the city, it still feels like that for me – like anything is possible. Even when you’re just walking, or riding the subway, there’s so much art and artistic expression happening around you.”
Roxas had made New York her home a bit earlier and still finds the city exhilarating.
“Every day in New York is like the first day, because there is so much here to discover, and one constantly meets people from all over the world who travel through here,” she tells INQUIRER.net. “I love New York for its potential for surprise. All the best minds and talent have their say here, I can listen to, and see, and explore with them each year—so I feel constantly inspired.”
Narrator turns up the sounds when Lola stops remembering in “Holding On”. INQUIRER/CMQM
For all the awe the Big Apple inspires, the two Filipinas chose it to be the platform for their profound appreciation of their cultural heritage.
Filipino first
Neither self-identifies as Filipina American, a tag they’ve earned having woven themselves into the national fabric with their professional accomplishments.
“Maybe I’m a Pinoyorker,” Roxas touts her identity. “I carry with me the love for building community that I feel was such a big part of my life growing up in the Philippines. It is wonderful to be able to have my own life here, and yet stay in touch with people and traditions (and food!) from back home.”
Lee is circumspect with her self-designation: “I’m a Filipino artist working in the US. It hasn’t been too long since I arrived in America for my MFA, and I’ve been really lucky in that I’m able to stay and build a career here, but I carry so much of home with me.”
Holding On speaks to her desire to stay true to who she is and where she came from, no matter where she is now.
“So many of my stories celebrate all that I love about the Philippines and about Filipinos, everywhere: like our love for music and our ability to find music wherever life brings us, like our kindness as a people, like the fierce way we love and sacrifice for our families.”
Mama Jessie would give her an A+.
