So Loud, by Sahar Golshan, illustrated by Shiva Delsooz (Annick Press) My debut picture book So Loud! hits bookstore and library shelves today in Canada with Annick Press. So Loud! is illustrated by Shiva Delsooz. One of the thumping hearts of this story is a badass, joyously loud diasporic grandmother. Māmān Bozorg, the Persian word for grandmother and the name of the character in question, was present in every draft of the book. And still, I wasn’t always certain about her place in this fictional story. Is my book playing into a trope? Grandparents, and grandmothers in particular, abound on the pages of children’s picture books. A hilarious photo from a Lit Hub article called “Let the Kids Get Weird: The Adult Problem With Children’s Books” by Janet Manley comes to mind. The image is a collage of nine books. Eight of the nine books are about both grandmothers and gardens. The ninth is simply a garden book: one a grandmother might buy for her grandchild. I hadn’t seen the image or read the article when I was revising the text of my book, but I had my own unique spiral of inquiry. Is the diasporic grandparent a cliché in picture books? If so, should I change my story in order to go against the grain? Cliché or cultural cornerstone, what unique role can a diasporic grandparent play in the life of a diasporic child? In the early stages of writing, I discussed my many diasporic-grandparent-picture-book questions with my editors Khary Mathurin and Claire Caldwell. On a Zoom editorial call, I wondered out loud. “Does the world really need another picture book about a girl and her grandmother?” Today my doubts about the power of the diasporic grandparent in picture books have waned. My thinking has changed. Abuelita and Me, by Leonarda Carranza, illustrations by Rafael Mayani A meaningful part of this shift has come through reading books like Abuelita and Me. Full transparency: Abuelita and Me is an Annick Press book, just like So Loud! Its placement in this blog post is not a promotion, but rather a genuine reference to my reading list as I wrote my book. While I wrote So Loud! I spent my days walking to and from my local library, hauling stacks of wide and mighty picture books. In Leonarda Carranza and Rafael Mayani’s work, a girl and her abuelita rely on one another as they navigate racism while moving around their city. On an Instagram live reel, writer Leonarda Carranza spoke about how the loving relationship between the grandmother and the young narrator help them contend with the racism they experience on a bus. In the months leading up to the publication of So Loud! I read 100 Chapatis. In Derek Mascarenhas and Shantala Robinson’s book, a boy and his grandfather make one hundred chapatis as they wait for the arrival of the boy’s new baby sibling. I attended the launch for this book. Writer Derek Mascarenhas spoke about how important it was to tell a story featuring a boy and his grandfather: two masculine people of two different generations cooking chapatis in a kitchen together. 100 Chapatis, by Derek Mascarenhas, illustrated by Shantala Robinson Like Abuelita and Me and 100 Chapatis, many of these books featured dynamic diasporic and Indigenous grandparents. Some of the titles included:
I liked discussing the books I was reading when I met with my editors. After all, they were the ones that recommended many of these titles. I once showed up to a meeting on a sunny spring morning. In the minutes before our appointment time, I slathered sunscreen on my face. Although I also found The Sour Cherry Tree supremely funny, talking about the grief in the book made me cry. The result was an hour-long eye sting. The Sour Cherry Tree, by Naseem Hrab, illustrations by Nahid Kazemi “I’m going full grandma,” I told my editors as it dawned on me how passionately I felt about diasporic grandparents in picture books. Much like the status of children’s picture books in the hierarchy of literature, stories about grandparents can often be overlooked as purely sentimental. What can be understood about the dynamism of such stories when we look again, this time from the vantage point of children separated from their families’ cultures by the inter-generational effects of migration, exile, and war? These works highlight the vital transmission of cultural, social, and emotional knowledge that grandparents can imbue in the lives of their diasporic grandchildren. For kids who grow up disconnected from their ancestral homes, stories that portray the lived experiences of diasporic elders are indispensable. Rudy and Māmān Bozorg So Loud! releases today, March 19, 2024, with Annick Press. The book releases in the United States on April 23, 2024. Words by Sahar Golshan. Pictures by Shiva Delsooz.
Follow Sahar Golshan on Instagram at @sahargolshanwriting. Follow Shiva Delsooz on Instagram at @shivadelsooz.art. Sahar Golshan is a writer, a language learner, and the director of the short documentary KAR (2019). She is a winner of the Marina Nemat Award for Creative Writing in Non-Fiction and a recipient of the Air Canada Short Film Award. Her writing has appeared in Room, Taclanese, Shameless, The Ex-Puritan, and Tongues: On Longing and Belonging through Language. She enjoys teaching and facilitating workshops in academic and community spaces such as the University of Toronto and the Toronto Public Library. Comments are closed.
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