Let’s Not Talk Anymore

With empathy and grace, Pixin explores her matrilineal history through five generations of teenage girls, from her great-grandmother in 1908 to her imagined future daughter in 2032. Kuan migrates from southern China to Singapore, along with her pet cricket, while disguised as a boy; Mèi’s unloving adoptive mother puts her to work at her seamstress business; Rita walks in the woods and sketches animals in a peaceful, leafy future. Each girl’s life is glimpsed in brief scenes that throw their differences into contrast (the first of the girls to attend school lives a life completely unlike those of her forebears) but also cause their similarities to echo. Themes repeat: love of animals and nature, fear and frustration toward adults, internalizing trauma, finding refuge in art. The later generations speculate about their grandmothers and great-grandmothers, piecing together what they know from family stories: “I wonder also what it would be like to live in a world where you have no control over your life.” The art, painted in blocks of bold color, has the crafted look of folk art or textiles, with patterns and flat layouts. Though the images are individually simple, they combine to fill the pages with color and life. This meditation on “the women who made us” will resonate with any reader who’s pored over old family photographs in search of themselves. (June)