Amelia Lau Carling (1949-) Biography - Personal, Career, Honors Awards, Writings, Work in Progress, Sidelights

Born 1949, in Guatemala City, Guatemala; immigrated to United States, 1966; Education: Occidental College, Los Angeles, B.A. (fine arts).

Career

Art director, writer, and illustrator. Dial Books for Young Readers, New York, NY, assistant art director, 1987–97; Golden Books, New York, NY, art director—Amelia Lau Carling and familytrade, 1997–2001; McGraw-Hill Educational, New York, NY, senior project manager, 2001–04; Oxford University Press, New York, NY, design project manager, 2004–. Has given readings from her work at schools in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, and at American Museum of Natural History, Museum of Chinese in the Americas, and at Museum of Chinese in the Americas, New York, NY, 1998–2003.

Honors Awards

Americas Award, Consortium of Latin American Studies, and Notable Book in the Field of Social Studies designation, National Council of Social Studies/Children's Book Council, both 1998, and Pura Belpre Honor Book for illustration, American Library Association, and Washington Irving Children's Choice Honor Book in Young Readers category, both 2000, all for Mama and Papa Have a Store.

Writings

SELF-ILLUSTRATED

Mama and Papa Have a Store, Dial (New York, NY), 1998.

Alfombras de aserrín, Groundwood Books (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 2005, translated by Carling as Sawdust Carpets, 2005.

Contributor of short fiction to Lectura (reader), Scott, Foresman, 1999.

Carling's work has been translated into Spanish.

ILLUSTRATOR

Humberto Ak'abal, Otras veces soy jaguar (poetry), Editoria Piedra Santa (Guatemala), 2006.

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Work in Progress

Illustrations for bilingual poetry collection Town and Country/Pueblo y campo, by Humberto Ak'abal, for Groundwood Books.

Sidelights

A talented illustrator and author, Amelia Lau Carling has captured her childhood memories as the daughter of Chinese immigrants making a new home in Central America in several self-illustrated picture books. Honored by several awards, including the Pura Belpre Honor Book designation in acknowledgment of Carling's colorful illustrations, Mama and Papa Have a Store introduces readers to life in Guatemala City during the 1950s, as seen through the eyes of the book's young narrator. Published simultaneously in Spanish and English, Sawdust Carpet explores the family's visit to Antigua, the old colonial capital of Guatemala, where they encounter a magnificent Easter pageant that leaves them with a heightened appreciation of the customs in cultures other than their own. In addition to original picture books, Carling has also worked as an illustrator, creating artwork for books by Mayan poet Humberto Ak'abal.

In the late 1930s, as World War II was just beginning in Europe, Carling's parents left their home in China, fleeing in the face of the Japanese invasion of China. The young couple settled in Guatemala, a Spanish-speaking country whose native people are of the Mayan race. In their new home, the Laus raised their children, adapted to a new language and culture, and lived as shopkeepers. In Mama and Papa Have a Store, which honors the author's parents, Carling describes a typical day in a Guatemalan shop, from opening for business, through interactions with customers, the midday meal with family, to the close of day. The young narrator, too young to go to school with her five older siblings, takes in all the activity of the marketplace, from the street vendors to the Mayan customers that come by bus from their Indian village to get supplies, to the family's Chinese neighbors who come by for a visit.

Calling Mama and Papa Have a Store a "pleasant family story" that has a "timeless" quality, School Library Journal contributor Pam Gosner added that "the engaging account … introduc[es] an interesting melange of cultural elements as seen from the preschooler's point of view." Noting that Carling's "nicely rendered" watercolor illustrations provide the "authentic details" needed to make the story come alive for young readers, Booklist critic Lauren Peterson added that Carling's debut picture book would serve as an excellent "introduction to the concept of immigration." Praising Carling's ability to render the landscape of her past so vividly, a Kirkus Reviews writer applauded the work as "a remarkable and affectionate story of one family's resilience" and of "how a life can flourish under trying circumstances."

Sawdust Carpets finds the family on a journey to Antigua, Guatemala to visit their cousins. During the visit, the young girl and her siblings, whose parents are Chinese Buddhists, discover the festivities that surround the Christian holiday of Easter. Among the many exciting traditions that the young narrator is exposed to, one in particular stands out: the sawdust carpet. Here many elaborate carpets are made out of sawdust on the cobblestone streets. Sawdust is layered with sprinkled water, and on its surface artisans sift colored sawdust on stenciled designs. Each carpet is different and original. Some are further decorated with fresh flowers and fruit. A laborious undertaking, the sawdust carpet becomes a pathway for the Easter procession, whose march will ultimately destroy in a few minutes what took so long to make. The young girl gets the chance make her own beautiful carpet, but suddenly realizing that it will not last long, she decides to save the work of art by trying to block the procession's path. However, after a neighbor explains the carpet's symbolic significance—the cycle of life and death—she learns an important lesson about change. Sawdust Carpets "draws us in with its warmth, vitality and the excitement of a child participating in something important," commented Resource Links reviewer Kathryn McNaughton, while Maryann H. Owen wrote in School Library Journal that Carling's picture book serves as "a happy comingling of two cultures and their traditions."

"In my first book I drew from my own rather unusual childhood in Guatemala," Carling once explained to SATA. "First I gathered striking images that I sketched from memory. Then I put words on paper. There were many futile attempts at bringing the words and pictures together, many discouraging periods when I just put the whole thing away and gave up. But the images wouldn't leave me alone. Somehow, after a month-long hiatus, they would spring up again in my brain as if on their own, and compel me to sketch, write, and research. The process was unhurried but sporadic and tortuous. Fortunately, I kept going, and it finally pulled itself together after I learned to be disciplined and tackled the manuscript daily, even if for a few minutes, no matter what.

"Creating something is messy; there is no guarantee that when you start at A you'll get to B and end up with C, but it's worthwhile. And bringing it out to the world opens surprising doors. One woman came to a reading with two children in tow and explained that she had adopted one in Guatemala and one in China, and my book brought their stories together for her. I've met Latin-American men and women who are Chinese now living in America and who find my story familiar, while most people find the notion of Chinese as Latinos very odd. Most of all, I derive pleasure from seeing how children read my story, think about their own family stories, and in turn write and draw pictures about them."