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A line can go anywhere : the brilliant, resilient life of artist Ruth Asawa
Book
2025
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Fiction/Biography Profile
Genre
NonFiction
Juvenile
Biography
Topics
Biographies
Art
History
Sculpture
Creativity
Resilience (Personality trait)
Heritage
Legacies
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Trade Reviews
Publishers Weekly Review
This sensitive biography of artist Ruth Asawa (1926--2013) begins by describing how an "invisible line divided Ruth's two worlds"--her life at home and Japanese classes, and her life at American school--a line that "became a wall" after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Her father is arrested, the rest of her family is interned, and Asawa is denied a college degree. But when she arrives at an experimental liberal arts school, "no one cared where she came from or what she looked like," and she becomes interested in art used in everyday lives. Asawa's fascination with the lines of thin wire that she fashions into precise sculptures is foreshadowed by the lines she encounters all her life, from those she traces in the dirt as a child to the lineage that connects her to family. Digitally finished charcoal and watercolor spreads by Green give Asawa's world rich layers of color, shadow, and texture, while McAlister's thoughtful prose foregrounds Asawa's pursuit of lines "that overlap and intersect, connect and divide." Background characters are portrayed with various skin tones. An author's note concludes. Ages 5--8. (Feb.)
Booklist Review
Lines can fence things in. They can lead out and away. This picture-book biography shows how lines did both for American modernist wire sculptor Ruth Aiko Asawa, whose art grew out of being imprisoned as a girl in U.S. incarceration camps during WWII. Both text and illustrations (created using charcoal and watercolor) emphasize lines, both literal and metaphorical. Asawa, one of seven children, grew up on a vegetable farm in California. The first illustration is of her sitting on a horse cart, dragging her toes in the dirt to make lines. We learn that Asawa and her family, as Japanese Americans, must toe an invisible line, being Japanese at home and acting "American" in school and in public. After Pearl Harbor, Ruth's family is imprisoned, first crowded into horse stalls at a racetrack and then sent to a brutal relocation center in Arkansas, surrounded by barbed wire. Two imprisoned Disney animators in the first camp teach Ruth to draw. Later, she uses her fascination with lines to shape the wire sculptures that are now exhibited worldwide in museums and in San Francisco public spaces. This unblinking and timely look at racism is also an inspiring, thought-provoking story.
Horn Book Review
This picture-book biography of Ruth Asawa (1926-2013) uses lines (straight, curved, wavy; physical and imaginary) as metaphors connecting the artist's life experiences to the sculptures she created. Growing up in rural California, young Ruth attended Japanese school on Saturdays where she "traced arcs in the air with bamboo swords" and practiced calligraphy as "bold black lines stretched across white paper." She straddles an invisible line that separates the Japanese food, customs, and language at home from those at school. When Japan attacks Pearl Harbor, that invisible line becomes a wall. Incarcerated with her family at the Rohwer Relocation Center in Arkansas, Ruth is eventually allowed to attend college but isn't allowed to complete her student teaching because of her race; "her path would not be a straight line." Later, Ruth travels to Mexico and is fascinated by the wire baskets used to carry eggs. Thinking back to the barbed wire at Rohwer, Ruth twists wire into sculpture, showing that "a line could go anywhere, be anything." After marriage, Ruth refuses to choose between career and family, so she "zigged and zagged" and made art while raising six children. Like her life path, Ruth's sculptures "curve and curl, with lines that overlap and intersect, connect and divide." Green's illustrations nicely complement the thoughtful and well-researched text; brilliant blues against brown backgrounds add visual contrast, highlighting important people and moments. An author's note, a bibliography, and photos are appended. Jennifer M. BrabanderMay/June 2025 p.113 (c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
An artist grappled with boundaries. Growing up in California, Ruth Aiko Asawa (1926-2013) was keenly aware of an "invisible line" separating her life at home, where she was called Aiko, from school, where she was known as Ruth--though "she could cross back and forth or even straddle it if she had to." This beautifully wrought metaphor for a bicultural Japanese American experience is echoed throughout the book: in the lines a young Asawa drew in the dirt at her family farm and the way she lined up for the Pledge of Allegiance at school. The most important lines, however, were those she made as an artist, especially when creativity sustained her while she and other Japanese Americans were imprisoned during World War II. She studied to become an art teacher, but "because she looked like the enemy, her college wouldn't place her at a school." She persevered and, after the war, found her way to Black Mountain College in North Carolina. Drawing inspiration from Mexican wire baskets and memories of barbed wire at the camps, Asawa was driven by the conviction that "art is for everyone." Infused with emotion, the unflinchingly honest text and exquisite mixed-media art, which layers dazzling pops of blue onto muted backdrops, detail the oppression Asawa faced--and her resilience. An informative author's note provides additional context for this story of an innovative artist whose legacy of democratizing the arts is utterly inspirational. A title worth moving to the head of the line. (photograph, bibliography)(Picture-book biography. 7-11) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Summary

A sweeping picture book biography about influential Japanese-American sculptor Aiko Ruth Asawa and her childhood spent in an incarceration camp, by award-winning author Caroline McAlister and rising star artist Jamie Green.

Growing up on a dusty farm in Southern California, Ruth Aiko Asawa lived between two worlds. She was Aiko to some and Ruth to others, an invisible line she balanced on every day.

But when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, suddenly she was only Aiko, no matter how much her family tried to cut the lines that connected them to Japan. Like many other Japanese Americans, Ruth and her family were sent to incarceration camps.

At the Santa Anita racetrack, Ruth ran her fingers over the lines of horsehair in the stable stalls the family had moved into. At the Rohwer Relocation Center in Arkansas, she drew what she saw--bayous, guard towers, and the barbed wire that separated her from her old life.

That same barbed wire would inspire Ruth's art for decades, as she grew into one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century. Throughout her career, she created enchanting twisting sculptures and curving shapes that connected, divided, and intersected.

This gorgeous biography delves into the magnificent life of Ruth Asawa and her timeless contributions to the art world.

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