The Inker's Shadow

When Allen Say is sent from his home in Japan to a military academy in Southern California, he is nervous but hopeful. But soon anxiety takes over. Allen is made to wear a boy soldier's uniform and live in a barracks. He is sixteen, but knows barely enough English to begin his American education as a sixth grader. 

As the school's first Japanese student, eight years after World War 2, Allen experiences discrimination among the cadets and some of the teachers, and he is moved into a storage shed. Determine to find freedom, Allen saves enough money to buy a car and escapes to look for the America he's seen in the movies. 

In this companion to his award-winning Drawing From Memory, Say paints a remarkable coming-of-age self-portrait by taking a fresh approach to a traditional story - that of a boy who discovers himself on a journey. Melding paintings with cartoon images and old photographs, Say presents an accessible book about the search for his own place in the world.