As a young Japanese boy recovers from a bad chill, his mother busily folds origami paper into delicate silver cranes in preparation for the boy's very first Christmas.
Allen Say is one of the most beloved artists working today. He is the recipient of the Caldecott Medal for GRANDFATHER'S JOURNEY, and also won a Caldecott Honor and the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for THE BOY OF THE THREE-YEAR NAP (written by Dianne Snyder). Many of Allen’s stories are derived from his own experiences as a child. His other books include THE BICYCLE MAN, TEA WITH MILK, and TREE OF CRANES, hailed by The Horn Book in a starred review as “the achievement of a master in his prime.� Allen’s recent book, ERIKA-SAN, received a starred review in Publishers Weekly. He lives in Portland, Oregon.
A nostalgic mother's care, concern, and love for her son are demonstrated through the sharing of a tradition she recalls from happy Christmases of her own childhood. She endeavors to surprise and delight him with a Japanese-American Christmas tree so that he may know the love and peace of a tranquil Christmas, and while her actions may not seem extraordinary, they have an unobtrusive but lasting impact.
An unusual Christmas read, requiring more deliberate thought, and even then, I don't find it definitive in mood. I want more context, more straightforwardness, as to what the mother's nostalgia brings to mind. Is she simply and fondly recalling youthful holiday memories, or is she wishing for the quiet and peaceful days from before she was a mother of an energetic and adventurous child? Maybe it's even bigger, for she mentions enemies not fighting, and she's an American living in Japan during an unknown timeframe, perhaps she is longing for calm international relations and world peace? These brief possibilities flash in your mind, none of them clear and definite.
It could be that she wishes for all of those and more. And maybe that's the beauty of the story, there are many ways to interpret it and all of them offer their own satisfaction and concordance.
A little boy is introduced to Christmas by his mother who grew up in California. Although this Japanese family does not celebrate Christmas the mother fondly remembers the Christmas trees she saw as a child and brings in a tree to decorate with origami cranes.
I wondered if this was a memory from Allen Says childhood? The book hints at the mother's sadness and her wish for peace. I wondered if this was a memory of a time during WWII perhaps.
An interesting story and a poignant one showing how different the hopes and fears of the mother and son are. Wonderful illustrations, I wish this could have had an instruction page for an origami crane at the back but still a lovely and different Christmas book.
I always enjoy the autobiographical picture books by this author/illustrator. This book features Allen and his mother and a special first Christmas for one and Christmas memories for the other. Vivid illustrations. Sad but not distressing, sweet, with a lovely message. 3-1/2 stars This isn’t my favorite by this author but it’s worth reading, especially as an unusual Christmas holiday story. 3-1/2 stars
Tree of Cranes is a great book for helping my kindergarten students step out of their common understandings of Christmas and see the holiday from a new perspective. Set in Japan, we were able to have discussions about elements of traditional Japanese architecture (including tatami mats; futons; narrow, deep bathtubs; and showering right on the bathroom floor), as well as the wearing of kimonos and the traditional Japanese art of origami, but more importantly, we were able to engage in a conversation about human experience and that there are (many) places where celebrating Christmas is not the ‘norm,� but rather an uncommon celebration. For those in my classroom who celebrate Christmas, the elements of decorating a tree, family togetherness, and the giving and receiving of gifts offered a connection to their own lives, and for my students who don’t celebrate Christmas, I think they felt a sense of camaraderie that there are others like them. In addition, the story got my students talking about the connection between obeying their parents and their parents� desire to keep them safe and healthy. (Plus, the story carried extra validation for two of my students who have parents who are Japanese immigrants. The families travel to Japan periodically to spend time with extended family, so the children could speak pridefully from personal experience about some of the elements of Japanese culture in the book.) Allen Say’s book fills an important place in our classroom library and classroom conversations, and I’m so grateful to have found it.
This is an excellent Christmas book. My son really enjoyed it.
We live in Japan and it does not depict modern Japan, though. My son understands this because he sees all the Christmas decorations here. But Americans kids need to be told that this story in this book is from many decades ago. Nowadays, Japanese moms do not wear kimono around the house and never decorate Christmas trees with origami cranes. Little boys nowadays are for more likely to ask for a Wii than for a kite.
Warning: At the end of the story, the boy wakes up and finds a kite under the tree. He says, "Thanks, mama! Thanks, papa!" My son "Why is he thanking his mother and father?" D'oh, Allen Say. Don't you know it is Santa who leaves presents??????
Mama brings from her birth home in California the concept of the decorated tree, of family, of the joy of giving, and the hope for goodwill & peace on earth. Considering that Say was born in 1937, and that this seems to be a memoir, I can easily empathize with Mama's desperation... perhaps this took place just after Pearl Harbor....
No baggage of Santa Claus or Christ, but a focus on the universals that so many of us on this small crowded planet wish we could share with one another. Beautiful, and engaging. The child's confusion, desires, and dreams feel fully authentic.
Say drew this book from the memory of his first Christmas in Japan. It is another piece of Say’s autobiographical books, which he is famous for. From the first illustration of the carp pond, which was actually a big goldfish hatchery next to his old childhood house, I was once again amazed at Say’s exquisite skills as an illustrator. Every detail was exactly caught by Say’s painting brush: the reflections on water, the ripples made by little Say, the color change of water surface, etc. The scattered yellow leaves on the water surface, adding bright color to the pond, made the whole picture alive. In the following illustrations, Say reproduced a real Japanese house that seems so attractive and real to me. Apart from showing us how a traditional Japanese house is like, Say shares other Japanese customs with us, such as folding a thousand cranes to make your wish come true, planting pines for long life wishes for newborn babies, etc.
Say’s tree, the Tree of Cranes, reveals Mama’s nostalgia for the land where she was born. “When all the candles were lit, she fell silent. She was remembering. She was seeing another tree in a faraway place where she had been small like me. (p. 24)� Wearing in kimono, living in a traditional Japanese house, Mama’s heart flew back to the land far, far way from Japan.
In this beautifully written and illustrated book set in Japan, a young boy catches a cold while looking for fish in his neighbor's pond. His mother takes care of him when he comes back inside, but she is distracted and preoccupied. After folding several origami cranes and digging up a small tree from the family's yard, she tells him about some of the Christmas traditions in her homeland, the United States, where many families celebrate Christmas. As is the case for so many of Allen Say's books, this one juxtaposes two cultures through its text and artwork. For instance, the boy and his mother each wear a kimono, kneel on cushions on the floor, and wear slippers inside, and he sleeps on a futon and bathes in a deep wooden bathtub, all representative of the Japanese culture. And yet despite her very Japanese ways, folding origami cranes patiently, the boy's mother seems homesick for some American traditions and at least on this one day, she wants to share that part of her heritage with him. It's a quiet story filled with love for family and appreciation for one's heritage.
This book is a great book to teach the lesson of giving and the real meaning of Christmas. The little boy’s mother realizes his Christmas is extremely important and wants to make it special for him even though he cannot celebrate it normally. She brings him a tree from outside, and then takes the time to make and give him all of the origami paper cranes. Teaching the reader about the true meaning of Christmas; giving to others without expecting something in return. I really enjoy this book and message that it sends to the reader because as a child, learning about Christmas can be hard and confusing sometimes. Children do not always grasp the meaning right away, and have to be retaught. This gives them a good insight into what it really means to give to others and to be selfless. It was also cool that it was kind of a very unique thing about the Japanese culture, paper cranes and how they are important.
The Christmas tree is beautiful! I have always liked origami, as does one of my nieces. She folded 100s of chickens (easier than cranes) and stored them in a box, even naming some of her birds. A few years later, we made cranes, and hung them from a light fixture. We like the message and the movement, so that's where they still hang.
2025 When young, we tend to think that everyone does things the way we do. The first reaction when we read this story is one of dismay: Santa doesn't visit kids in Japan!?
Say is my favorite author/illustrator for all things Japanese. My husband served a mission in Japan, so he always enjoys this type of story. In this tale, the little boy disobeys his mother and end up catching a cold. When he gets home he is sent straight to bed, but is mother is preoccupied and he can’t understand her strange behavior. Finally she gathers origami cranes, candles and a little tree and tells him a story he will never forget.
This is a sweet, but poignant tale about a mother's almost-desperate need to bring a bit of Christmas to her son. The story is enlightening and shows a bit of the contrast between two cultures. The illustrations are just as good as we've come to expect from , and we enjoyed reading this book together. We will certainly look for more of his books at our local library.
My kids were head over heels for this book - maybe because of the Christmas connection.
It's not *quite* as good as Grandfather's Journey to me (hence 4 stars rather than 5) but they do flow together nicely and the kids totally picked up on the connections (the mama here is the daughter there).
They've asked me to buy more Allen Say books for the classroom. :)
This book tells story about the first Christmas that a Japanese boy have experienced. It is well illustrated with watercolor to build the peaceful atmosphere. it is a great resource for teacher to use as introduction of the unit of compare western and eastern cultures.
Allen Say is a master watercolorist. This quiet book shows us the magic of family and love in another culture. 1027 words, book level 2.6, lower grades.
As a Japanese boy recovers from a cold, his mother prepares his first celebration of Christmas by folding origami cranes to decorate a small pine tree. Sharing her childhood experiences at Christmas, readers could delve in and out of the best blend of two cultures. As we migrate around the world, traditions, ideas, and beliefs travel with us and enrich our lives in amazing ways. I am a fan of Allen Say's work and enjoy the water-color illustrations of Japanese culture in this book.
A young boy's mother explains to him that she's homesick for California because it's Christmas but it's not celebrated in Japan. They make a Christmas tree out of a small evergreen and decorate it with paper cranes and candles.
Thanks to my son's homeschooling english language arts course I have been introduced to Allen Say and I love his stories about his family. This is another winner, it's a sweet story of memories of ones first Christmas. Highly recommend you share all of Allen Says books with your kids.
"And that's what I had, with a sour plum and yellow radishes, eating all alone and drinking hot tea in Papa's big cup." Oh to be a sweet little Japanese boy drinking tea from your father's mug, being tucked into a big blanket wearing comfortable pyjamas as the world snows outside. Something about Japanese culture is so comforting to me, i just-
The celebration of holidays is a big part of any culture, defining how one comes to think of each special day on the calendar throughout the year, so it stands to reason that vast differences in the way holidays are observed would be one of the hard parts of living away in a foreign country. For those residing in Japan of a certain era, the idea of Christmas would have been a strange one, perhaps even to children with a mother who grew up in the United States celebrating Christmas before moving to Japan, finding a husband and settling down to start a family. But the most meaningful parts of one's culture by birth never fade away entirely, and the beauty of Christmas can extend even to the farthest reaches of the earth if someone is there to spread the joy of the season. As the boy's mother describes the holiday in Tree of Cranes, "You give and receive, child. It is a day of love and peace. Strangers smile at one another. Enemies stop fighting. We need more days like it." If that truly is Christmas, then we surely could do with many more days like it, days when the gentler nature of humanity prevails as we put aside the conflicts of life, even for just a few moments, and visit with the peace and accord that could still be our inheritance. Is it any surprise the tradition of Christmas is one an immigrant from America to the Land of the Rising Sun would not want to relinquish?
When a Japanese boy disappoints his mother by playing over the neighbor's outdoor carp pool, soaking himself and his clothing, his mother's reaction strikes him as odd. She's distracted today, offering not much more than a mild rebuke and ten-minute detention in a warm bath for her son, to ward off chill. In the cold weather outside, he later finds her digging up his special little tree from the front lawn, and wonders if his mother's eccentric behavior is his fault for not obeying her and staying away from the neighbor's pond. His mother's actions are not a roundabout form of reprimand, however, but preparations for the boy to have the first Christmas celebration of his life in a land where few have heard of the holiday. The boy helps his mother adorn his special tree indoors with origami cranes and lit candles, a design more majestic than that of most trees decorated by people who keep Christmas as a yearly event. And when he is told that gifts are traditionally exchanged on Christmas, there's no adjustment of expectations to be made for this child who has lived his whole life without ever hearing about Christmas. The present he wants most is already on the tip of his tongue, ready to leap out at a prospective gift giver without reservation, as if the boy had somehow always been waiting for the first mention of Christmas in his household.
That Christmas isn't a loud or expensive affair, just a quiet offering of presents beneath a little tree decorated in typical elegant, distinguished Japanese artistry, and a whole day of togetherness for the family, sharing their good humor and teaming up to roll snow into a snowman in the yard. But it's a Christmas that stays with the boy through all the years of his life. It is the year his mother introduced him to this special day she brought with her from America, and never will he forget its importance to his family. Christmas means a host of diverse things to as many different people as celebrate it, but to this boy, his mother and father, it means being together no matter in what continent or culture, continuing to appreciate the past today and not losing sight of what brought them to where they are now, and how fortunate they are to be there. Understated and attractive, Tree of Cranes is a good story for the holiday season, chronicling the history of multiple cultures where they meet at Christmas and giving a solid starting point for further discussion. If you're interested in a different sort of Christmas picture book, I recommend Tree of Cranes.
My copy of Allen Say's "Tree of Cranes" is 24 years old and was bought for reading aloud to my seven-year-old son. I was struck by the beautiful mother-son relationship and had to have it. I know now of Mr. Say's fame and literary success writing about his Japanese-American heritage. This particular story tells about a boy who loves to watch the colorful carp in the garden pond, but knows, all the while, that his trips to the pond frighten his mother. When he returns from his latest trip cold and wet, his mother is quiet and stern with him. He immediately feels sorry for having worried her. Her gentle silent disappointment is harder for the boy's conscience to bear than any other form of discipline could have been. After settling her son in bed, the young mother sets to work moving a bonsai tree indoors and covering it with silver origami cranes and tiny candles. It is a labor, not just for a great petition, but also in honor of a distant memory of the Christmas trees from her childhood memories, and the tradition of peace and gift giving on that day. The reader can guess what favor and gift the boy's mother wants - that he will never go to the pond again. Mr. Say's watercolor illustrations faithfully and poignantly transport the reader to the artistic gardens and delicate rice paper walls of a Japanese home. Most notable, though, is his ability to capture the rays of light that reflect from the silver paper cranes onto the mother and child, and out into the room. It is a very special peaceful place in the story where I always linger for several minutes. The obvious themes in this story are of the importance of family ties and cultural heritage. Much thoughtful discussion could be encouraged on the challenges of immigrant families and the efforts to preserve cultural identities. But for me, personally, this will always be a book about the bond that exists between mother and son. In many Western cultures it finds its most sublime expression in the sculptures and images of the Virgin Mother and Christ Child. This theme represents the very short time that a mother has to nurture and protect her young male child before he charges into the world to lead a life of hardship, dangers, sacrifices, and maybe even battle. This theme is why I bought the book so long ago and still read it today. It captures with great authenticity that brief time that a woman is given to nurture her young son before she must step away forever. I wholeheartedly recommend this book as a cultural study read aloud, but most especially for those special reflections on parenthood and the bonds between mother and child.
"Tree of Cranes" is about a young Japanese boy who comes home with a cold after playing in a forbidden pond. His mother is upset and hardly looks at him, but she puts him into a hot bath and then to bed. His mother is busy folding silver paper cranes and then brings in the little pine tree that had been planted when the boy was born. She decorates it with candles and cranes, explaining how she used to celebrate Christmas in California, where she grew up. The boy lights the candles and the next day he receives a gift of a kite that he really wanted for his first Christmas. Allen Say's illustrations are very elegant. Geometric forms are used in the Japanese architecture that provides a calm background and uses softer lines that define the little boy and his mother. This story shows the ideas between Eastern and Western cultures and the differences and similarities between them. This story allows for children's common understandings of Christmas to be seen from a new perspective. Every detail was caught by Say's illustrations, from the ripples and reflection on the water to the yellow leaves that add bright color to the pond make the pictures come alive.
This is a good book to read at Christmas. In this book, a young boy in Japan catches a cold ans has to spend time in his room. His mother goes to the garden and digs up the pine tree that she planted when he was born. The mother places the tree in his room and decorates it with origami cranes that she made. The mother explains why she is decorating a tree and informs her son about the American traditions. She tells him about California and growing up. This book represents the young boys first 'Christmas'. I think this is a good book to share with students during Christmas and it shows students that other cultures have different traditions. The illustrations in this book were beautiful. The watercolors used help set the tone for the story. I would use this book with a second or third grade class.
Allen Say's Tree of Cranes is a magnificent children's book. It allows young students to see what it is like on Christmas through another's perspective. The plot of this story was great and the Japanese culture was not the only culture throughout it. In this story the young boy disobeys his mother and goes out and catches a cold while fishing in a neighbors pond. His mother takes care of him, but is distracted making origami cranes and getting a Christmas tree together. She then tells him of the Christmas traditions that she did in her home country (United States. The story is based around the boy's first Christmas. Say's illustration are beautiful and the paintings truly make the story come to life. Children would love the illustrations and it would be able to grab and potentially keep their attention.
When a young Japanese boy comes home with a cold one day because he disobeyed his mother, he expects her to be upset with him. But when his mother instead shares with him the beauty of Christmas, he is in awe. This book has some of the most beautiful watercolor illustrations I have ever seen. The pallet is cool and serene with vibrant accents of red and yellow. The pictures are centered on square pages of glossy white paper and framed in white. This gives a feeling of distance (because the boy is looking back in time) and clarity (because the memories are so vivid for him). This book is a beautiful piece of art for introducing children to Japanese culture. It also ties back to American culture and Christianity. Because of these blending elements, I think they are numerous ways to use this book in a teaching setting. It can also simply be enjoyed.
A young boy disobeys his mother and goes to play near a pond. When he returns home, his mother is clearly upset and sends the boy to take a warm bath. When the boy gets out of bed, he finds his mother folding paper cranes and decorating a pine tree. She shares with him a holiday tradition that she learned growing up in Japan.
This is a beautifully illustrated book that address some universal Christmas themes: peace, generosity, and kindness.
Teaching ideas: Making inferences - The mother never says Christmas. What clues help you know that this is the holiday she is talking about? Foreshadowing - How does Allan Say let you know what the boy's promise will be? Compare and Contrast - Japanese vs. American homes and care when sick.