Recap - March 2024
Potatoes and Home Sweet Home
Hope you had a lovely Easter holiday. Two main highlights of the last month for me were World Book Day (7th March) and my trip to Japan. Let’s start with the former.
World Book Day
For authors and illustrators, the beginning of March is always marked by World Book Day. This year I visited two schools in my local area in south London. The visits were organised by wonderful children’s bookshop in Clapham Common, ChocoLit. (This is one of the reasons you should build a good relationship with independent bookshops.) I did story-time and drawing workshops based on The Pet Potato (written by Josh Lacey and illustrated by me) for nursery to Year 2 students. With the older children, I did a draw-a-long of a pirate pet potato and then let them design their own pet potatoes. To add the finishing touch, we crumpled our drawings to make them look like the bumpy potatoes. Some looked me with excitement and others looked me in horror.
Sayonara, my home
I spent the second half of the month in Japan. I go back home once a year and it’s usually something I look forward to. However, this time it was a bittersweet visit. The main purpose of this trip was to say good bye to my childhood home. My family have lived on the same land since mid-19th century. However, we are regrettably selling our estate as my family is getting smaller and older. The saddest thing is that everything - my parent’s house, my grandparents’ house and our big garden - will be gone. Our estate will be turned into nine empty plots to build new houses this summer.
My family home was built in 1977 and it was featured in an architectural magazine. My love for mid-century modern architecture definitely stemmed from here. As my brother and I grew older and bigger, the house also transformed to accommodate our needs. It was as if the house and we grew up together. Also, the number of bookshelves grew. Almost every single wall ended up being covered with bookshelves.
On the other hand, my grandparents’ house was more traditional with paper sliding doors and tatami mats. My parents worked so I spent a lot of time in this house when I was little. The house contains so many fond memories.
I brought my granddad’s Leica that I had been neglecting for years with me to this trip. (My colleague who is an amateur photographer recently told me off for wasting “the Rolls Royce of film cameras”.) I bought two film rolls and spent some time, taking photos of my family homes and garden. Unlike digital cameras, I needed to be mindful of each shot. As a result, I felt I was more connected with what’s in front of the lens. I wasn’t even sure if I had loaded the film rolls correctly so it was a huge relief when about ⅔ of films came out OK.
If my house was my castle, the garden was my kingdom. There were plenty of trees for me to climb and hidden places to practice magic spells. We used to have four amazing cherry blossom trees and the canopies they cast every spring were a thing of magic. The garden was my grandma’s passion. It never lacked in colours - red of maple leaves, pink of peach trees, orange of sweet osmanthus, yellow of daffodils, green of bamboos, blue of grape-hyacinth, purple of magnolia to name a few. It smelt different each season and it was always filled with bird songs.
When my dad died 25 years ago, I spent a lot of time in the garden and I found solace and comfort there. It was spring when the garden was at its best. I was inspired by all the colours of life the garden produced and I created some sort of quilted garment case with images of the garden in four seasons embroidered. It helped me going through the tough time. That’s how I grieve - I create when I have lost something.
Exactly 25 years later, I’m grieving again, this time for my childhood home. To distract myself from the sadness, I embarked on another project. I was pretty proud of the garment bag but I never used it for what it was designed for. So, I turned it into something I would actually use. I unthreaded the bag and took it apart into pieces and reformed them into a cushion, two eye masks and some sort of place mat.
The biggest regret was missing this year’s cherry blossoms by a few days. Cherry blossoms bloom only for a week or two and the timing is hard to predict. I really wanted to see our family trees blooming one last time before they will be cut down. Alas! We can’t control nature and that’s exactly why they are so precious and wondrous. At least, I caught my namesake peach (momo) trees blooming. I'm scared to lose the place called home where always welcomed me back past 40 years. I wish I could have stayed longer but, as Buddha said, nothing is permanent. I need to eventually let it go. Even if I stayed and kept saying good byes, it wouldn’t ease my heartbreak anyway. I must appreciate that I had a chance to see it one last time and say thank you for giving me wonderful childhood and watching me growing up.
Places I visited
Of course, I didn’t spend all two weeks just mourning. I visited two children’s book related museums in Tokyo that you might find interesting.
Chihiro Art Museum: a museum dedicated to Chihiro Iwasaki, a Japanese artist and illustrator best known for her water-colored illustrations of flowers and children. Her work is stunning. There’s also a replica of her studio. Highly recommended.
Kiki’s Museum of Literature: a big children’s book library and exhibition spaces dedicated to Kiki’s Delivery Service series author, Eiko Kadono. There are interactive spaces for children. Perfect for family outing.
Books I bought
(From top left to bottom right)
A Woggle of Witches by Adrienne Adams
Kiki’s Delivery Service by Eiko Kadono
Who hid it? by Taro Gomi
Hige ga nagasugiru neko (“The cat whose whiskers were too long”) by Heisuke Kitazawa
The Crocodile and the Dentist by Taro Gomi
That’s it…
For many children’s authors and illustrators, the highlight of April would be the Bologna Children’s Book Fair. Sadly, I’m NOT going this year. But if you are, have a wonderful time in Bologna. Check out my BCBF posts in the past for some tips and recommendations.
Momo x
Let me know what you want to read/see in my newsletters this year. Or, if you have a question for me about being a writer/illustrator, about my book, or want to share your thoughts, feel free to leave a comment.
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This was so beautiful to read - the photos on film of both family homes, and the remaking of your ‘grief project’ were so moving. And the detail on the embroidered cherry blossom is stunning!
I’m glad you had the Leica to capture your wonderful family homes. Such beautiful pictures and memories. x