A Line Can Go Anywhere: The Brilliant, Resilient Life of Artist Ruth Asawa

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.)