Amah Faraway
Written by Margaret Chiu Greanias
Illustrated by Tracy Subisak
Bloomsbury, 2022, 36 pp (unpaged)
ISBN: 978-1547607211

Amah Faraway tells how a young girl named Kylie and her Taiwanese Amah/grandmother grow in their relationship during the child’s visit to Taipei. When the story opens, Kylie’s mother announces it’s time for a visit with Amah. “One hundred butterflies took flight in Kylie’s belly.” Although they meet online every Saturday to tell stories, sing songs, and talk about snacks, Kylie and her Amah rarely see each other in “real life.”

When Kylie and her mother arrive in Taiwan, Amah greets her visitors with a sign that reads “KYLIE” in English and Mandarin Chinese. At the beginning, Kylie understands little that Amah says and finds her customs strange. She is overwhelmed by the large extended family who attend a banquet in her and her mother’s honor; she eats only rice rather than tasting all the delicious offerings laid before her.

Kylie trails behind her mother and grandmother when Amah shows them the city she loves. Amah treats them to Chinese donuts and takes them to parks and shops at the night market. When Amah speaks, her speech bubbles display Taiwanese language pronunciation along with traditional Mandarin Chinese characters, followed by the English translation.

The relationships change when Amah takes them to the hot springs. Kylie takes a chance and finds she loves splashing in the warm water. Now, Kylie’s speech bubbles dominate the story and are displayed in English, followed by Chinese Mandarin characters, and then the pronunciation in Taiwanese. After that, Amah and Mama trail behind Kylie everywhere they go.

The story then follows a confident child leading her Amah and mother through each experience in reverse. The clever layout of languages in the speech bubbles allows readers to read top-to-bottom, or bottom-to-top. With each read, readers get a glimpse into the linguistic experiences of each character. Author Margaret Chiu Greanias shows how Kylie has grown to embrace her Taiwanese family, city, culture, and language as she shops at the night market, plays in parks, eats Chinese donuts, tours Taipei, and dines at a banquet of delicious food with her now familiar relatives. When she returns to San Francisco, Kylie and Amah continue to meet online, building on the strong familial bond that developed during their visit. At the end of the story, Kylie is the one who speaks the sentence that opened the book: “It was time…for a visit.”

While the speech bubbles in Amah Faraway provide cultural information and add innovation to the book, the author, illustrator, or editor missed an opportunity to support readers in taking full advantage of these innovations. Adding an informational note regarding Taiwanese pronunciation and Mandarin Chinese characters could help non-Mandarin and non-Taiwanese language readers successfully read aloud the print in this book.

This book invites readers to connect with the characters’ feelings and to notice how Kylie’s feelings, in particular, change over the course of the story. Greanias plotted the book to show how children’s feelings can change as they experience new things, especially with their families and in the context of their heritage cultures. Learning language is one aspect of culture that supports Kylie’s growth.

The dedication by the author reads: “to all families with a loved one faraway.”

Amah Faraway can be paired with picturebooks that center on children learning more about their heritage from their elders. In Drawn Together by Minh Lê, illustrated by Dan Santat (2018), a young boy and his Thai-speaking grandfather cross linguistic, cultural, and generational borders through drawing action figures and sharing their imaginations. In Nana Akua Goes to School by Tricia Elam Walker, illustrated by April Harrison (2020), Zura’s Nana visits her class on Grandparents Day and shares a quilt with Ghanaian symbols and crosses cultural borders by explaining and sharing family traditions. When Three Oceans Meet, written by Rajani LaRocca and illustrated by Archana Sreenivasan (2021), tells how a young girl named Sejal, her U.S. immigrant mother, and Indian Pati/grandmother travel from Bangalore to the southern tip of India sharing languages and cultural connections along the way.

Greanias, a U.S.-born grandchild, also kept close ties with her Taiwanese Amah – before video chat. She is the daughter of Taiwanese immigrants; her Amah lived in Taipei. This story is personally meaningful for her as well as for illustrator Tracy Subisak, whose mother is Taiwanese. As an adult, Subisak lived in Taipei for a time. Read more about her work on her website.

Illustrator Tracy Subisak uses India ink, Japanese watercolor, pastel, and colored pencil on watercolor paper. Beginning with the endpapers that portray various aspects of Taiwanese culture, readers are drawn into Kylie’s learning about her heritage. With multiple scenes on single pages, feelings depicted in characters’ faces and body language, and techniques that convey movement, readers experience the connection, adventure, and love in this story. The large close-up portraits of Kylie’s and Amah’s faces are particularly effective. See more of Subisak’s work on her website.

The book’s backmatter includes a note from the author followed by a section in which Greanias points out Kylie’s transformation and how the structure of events in the story circle back to the beginning in reverse order. In Subisak’s illustrator’s note, she shares her Taiwanese connections. The final page of the book describes the sites of Taipei visited by the characters in the book and provides information about Taiwanese food.

Judi Moreillon, Tucson, AZ

© 2022 by Judi Moreillon