Drawn Together by Minh Le

Drawn Together is a perfectly titled picture book about how a shared talent for drawing brings a grandfather and his grandson closer together. Language is the barrier between them: grandfather speaks Vietnamese and grandson speaks English. Finally, during yet another dreaded, silent visit with his grandfather, the two stumble upon "a world beyond words"...drawing. They spend a wonderful afternoon drawing together and start to finally get to know each other, without words.

The pictures by Caldecott-winning illustrator Dan Santat are wonderfully unique and detailed. Since the book has very few words, the illustrations play an extra important role in telling the story. Comparing the grandfather's artistic style to the grandson's enabled me as a reader to get to know these two characters.

Le's message in this book is a beautiful one that offers hope to anyone separated from another because of a language barrier. It opened my mind to the fact that talking is only one of many ways we can communicate with each other.

Mrs. N.