{"id":5278,"date":"2021-02-07T00:01:48","date_gmt":"2021-02-07T06:01:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=5278"},"modified":"2021-02-07T11:54:03","modified_gmt":"2021-02-07T17:54:03","slug":"7-imps-7-kicks-729-featuring-julia-kuo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=5278","title":{"rendered":"7-Imp\u2019s 7 Kicks #729: Featuring Julia Kuo"},"content":{"rendered":"

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“I dream with Popo as she rocks me in her arms. She sings, ‘Beibei xin, beibei gan.’
In my heart I hear: My baby, my heart. My baby, my love.”<\/em>
(Click spread to enlarge)<\/center>
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\nI’m following up Thursday’s post<\/a><\/strong> about the tight bond and transcendent love between a granddaughter and grandmother with another post about the same. Today, it’s Livia Blackburne’s<\/a><\/strong> I Dream of Popo<\/a><\/strong><\/em> (Roaring Brook, January 2021), illustrated by Julia Kuo<\/a><\/strong>. And it is lovely. <\/p>\n

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Told from the point of view of a young Taiwanese girl smitten with her grandmother, the story recounts their special bond \u2014 and how the girl navigates that after her family emigrates to San Diego. The first four spreads expertly establish their relationship. On a muted palette dominated by forest green, coral, and copper hues, we take in their world in Taiwan. Soon, the girl is saying farewell at the airport and in a new home in the U.S., meeting “kids with hair of every color and skin of every shade. They say, ‘Hi.’ I say, ‘Ni hao.'” In school, the girl draws her Popo but writes “My grandma,” which feels strange to her. But during one of the girl’s first visits back to Taiwan, when she notices that her Popo seems older, she discovers that now “‘ni hao’ is what feels strange in my mouth.” <\/p>\n

Though the girl is clearly acclimating to her new American culture, her love for Popo never fades. The book closes in an open-ended way: After hearing from Popo during a video conferencing call that she is ill, the girl sings to her, while Popo lies in bed, “frail under heavy blankets.” Not long after, she dreams of Popo visiting her in her dreams: “A breeze brushes my face, rich with the scent of gui hua.” <\/p>\n

In a closing author’s note, Blackburne writes that she drew from her own life to write this story. “To this day,” she writes, “I can hum the tune a touchtone phone makes when dialing the long-distance code for Taipei.” This note also provides more context around the Mandarin phrases used in the book as well as Chinese New Year traditions, flowers native to Asia, and sticky rice cakes. “When you live away from loved ones,” Blackburne writes, “memories of place get interwoven with memories of people.” An illustrator’s note also explains that Kuo is a second-generation Taiwanese American, who grew up in LA but lived in Taiwan for a year when she was four years old: “When this year ended and we moved back to the States,” she writes, “I’d forgotten how to speak English!” The book’s backmatter also includes a glossary of Mandarin words. <\/p>\n

Blackburne fills the text with variations of the book’s title \u2014 “I dream with Popo”; “I walk with Popo”; “I bow to Popo”; “I draw Popo”; etc. \u2014 which give the book a satisfying rhythm. Her first-person observations are never too precious; it is with specificity and subtle lyrical touches that she conveys the girl’s thoughts and experiences. Kuo captures the pair’s emotional and physical affection for one another in expressive spreads, most strikingly the opening and closing ones (the opening one is pictured atop this post), that feature the body language of an intergenerational bond: Popo envelops the girl in her arms with so much love, devotion, and longing. There is a pleasing balance here between the text and the pictures; moments are reduced to their essentials so that our focus remains on the bond between grandmother and grandchild. <\/p>\n

Here are some spreads from the book. If you pick up a copy, be sure to take a peek at the cover art under the dustjacket.
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“I walk with Popo in the park, squeezing her finger in my chubby palm. When I wobble, she holds me up. She pushes me on the swing and lifts me to hear the birds sing.”<\/em>
(Click spread to enlarge)<\/center>
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(Click either image above to see spread in its entirety)<\/em><\/center>
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“I sit with Popo and she shows me where I’m going to live. Here is Taiwan,
so tiny, surrounded by blue. There is San Diego, far, far away.
‘You will learn and see many new things,’ she says.”<\/em>
(Click spread to enlarge)<\/center>
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(Click cover to enlarge)<\/em><\/center>
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\nI DREAM OF POPO. Text copyright \u00a9 2021 by Livia Blackburne. Illustrations \u00a9 2021 by Julia Kuo and reproduced by permission of the publisher, Roaring Brook Press, New York.<\/em><\/p>\n

* * * Jules’s Kicks * * *<\/strong><\/font>
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Note for any new readers: 7-Imp\u2019s 7 Kicks is a weekly meeting ground for taking some time to reflect on Seven(ish) Exceptionally Fabulous, Beautiful, Interesting, Hilarious, or Otherwise Positive Noteworthy Things from the past week, whether book-related or not, that happened to you. New kickers are always welcome.<\/p>\n

1)<\/strong><\/font> Stacey Abrams nominated for Nobel Peace Prize<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

2)<\/strong><\/font> LeVar Burton named Inaugural PEN\/Faulkner Literary Champion<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

3)<\/strong><\/font> Walks with friends. <\/p>\n

4)<\/strong><\/font> Finally saw Queen and Slim<\/a><\/strong><\/em>. Can’t stop thinking about it. <\/p>\n

5)<\/strong><\/font> New copyediting class. New learning. <\/p>\n

6)<\/strong><\/font> Seeing the final episode of Schitt’s Creek<\/em>, which has me humming this:
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