I learned so much from this one! Based on the life of Japanese American architect Minoru Yamasaki. It starts when he is a young child immigrating to the US and goes through his life, including creating the World Trade Center Twin Towers. Please include this book your libraries. His story deserves to be shared with young children to see the resilience and hard work of an Asian American immigrant who is renowned world wide for his accomplishments.

My little girls love it when I read them a new picture book. I sat down in the middle of our living room tonight and started reading them Shapes, Lines, and Light, and they were quite interested. Pretty soon, my oldest daughter got annoyed. She was trying to talk to one of my older sons, and he was distracted by the story I was reading to the little girls!
Katie Yamasaki wrote this book about her grandfather’s life. As a young man, living in a crowded, low-income neighborhood in Seattle, he noticed that he felt differently about different places. Some places made him feel closed in, and unwanted; other places felt safe and he felt seen. In the forest, he felt light and free. He decided that he would make the life he wanted for himself—but how?
Yama studied hard, and he worked hard to pay for his studies. He learned to design buildings, to be an innovative architect. However, between the Great Depression and the fact that he was Japanese American, life was difficult. Yama had to face discrimination, but he did not let that stop him from designing buildings that made him feel the way he felt when he was out in nature.
I liked Yama’s family values. He built his house to accomodate his family, and the book says that he filled his house with his children and grandchildren. I also appreciated that he did not become bitter when he was discriminated against. That is lightly touched on in the main part of the book, but the historical note at the end goes into a lot more detail.
The pictures throughout this book are beautiful!I have read a lot of picture book biographies, and the artwork in Shapes, Lines, and Light is something special. They glow with color, but at the same time, there is a lot of white space on most of the pages. Reading this book makes me feel the way Yama wanted people to feel about his buildings. This is a special book!
I received a review copy of this book from NetGalley, and these are my honest thoughts about it.

Minoru Yamasaki overcame adversity to become one of America’s most successful architects. He suffered racism as a Japanese American because of World War II. He brought light and air into many public buildings. The author, his granddaughter, also writes about the destruction of Yamasaki’s Twin Towers in New York.

Read this biography to promote discussions on:
- racism
- overcoming adversity
- following dreams
- hard work
- perseverance
- architecture
- poverty

Book received for free through NetGalley

This book is amazing. I read the arc (pre-release) through my kindle but even with the weird placements and empty sections the story, images, and architectural drawings throughout were gorgeous. I love the addition of the biography at the end to further explain who he was in addition to the child-friendly text before.

One artist, reminiscing on the art of her grandfather. Katie's work reminds me a lot of murals. The faces (and people in general) are given greater contour, to help them stand out against vast backgrounds and sometimes over-busy foregrounds. Over-busy not in a sense of artistic judgement, but more for the frantic struggle of Minoru Yamasaki to just tread water long enough to achieve his dream of becoming an architect.

The book, of course, portrays many of Yamasaki's structures, as well as the international influences that helped build his own personal style. The artist/storyteller also doesn't shy from Minoru's failures, such as the Pruitt-Igoe housing project. The story rounds out with the fall of the Twin Towers, another of Yamasaki's works, and how Minoru's legacy lives on in his stylistic ideals, if not always directly in his creations.

The book ends with a more detailed biography section, but the best part, in my opinion are all the original sketches of Yamasaki's buildings, including one of his own family home! Locations are given (most in the United States, but one in India, one in Japan, and two in Saudi Arabia), so even if you don't immediately recognize a building, you've likely been to one of the major cities and could pull up some vacation pictures for your kid, to show you by the structures.

A fairly deep look (for a picture book) at an architecture I only barely knew. The best part of this was seeing the breadth and range of the projects this talented man worked on over the course of his life.

I am a big fan of picture book biographies and will add this one to my collection.

There are not enough stories about Asian Americans, especially in ways that many people can relate to. The author made her grandfather's experiences feel real and as someone with a vastly different background, I still felt like I could connect with him. I appreciated the frank explanation of the racism and obstacles faced- too many stories gloss over this. Kids need to see the not- so pretty sides of our history. I think the first- generation American experience was well written, and a perspective I would like to see more of. There were many rich vocabulary words and the illustrations are gorgeous.

I found some of the more abstract ideas to be slightly challenging. Some people were shown a miniatures or sitting atop buildings, This may be confusing for younger readers. As an adult I did have to go back and think about the World Trade Center page- the style was so different than the other architecture it was not immediately apparent that he also designed those buildings. I think it would be hard for young readers who do not have firsthand experience of the impact of 9/11 to understand the significance.

The general public might know of Minoru Yamasaki as the architect of the original World Trade Center complex in New York; architecture fans might also know of his work on the Pruitt-Igoe housing complex in St. Louise. However, Yamasaki's dedication to "light and serenity" was infused throughout all of his work, inspired by his travels and personal life experiences. One particularly striking passage depicts a younger Yamasaki cycling and out of buildings as he gets repeatedly rejected for jobs, primarily due to anti-Japanese sentiment. It ends of a home. I love how the author/illustrator--Yamasaki's granddaughter--combines the text with vivid interpretations of the architect's buildings and philosophy, and ends with a hopeful note about her grandfather's legacy.

I loved learning about this architect and all his contributions and his journey to become the successful person that he was. I enjoyed the illustrations being so building focused. This will be a book I add to my classroom library. Thank you #netgalley for giving me a copy of this book.

A beautiful story of finding yourself in a world that says you don't belong by @Katie_Yamasaki A story of perseverance through hate and judgment.

This book focuses on a Japanese architect grandfather who deals with segregation. He has a lot of struggles because of money. It explains how he overcame those difficulties and had success in his life.

Shapes, Lines, and Light by Katie Yamasaki tells the story about one of America’s most talented architects, Minoru Yamasaki. Yamasaki is best known for designing the Twin Towers. However, his legacy goes throughout the world.
Yamasaki was born in Seattle, to immigrant parents. He faced much prejudice during his life, yet he persevered and started his own design company.
This is a great book for children in grades 3-8. The lovely pictures compliment the story perfectly. I want to thank the author, Norton Young Readers and NetGalley for a complimentary copy of the book. The opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own.

This is the most famous architect you have probably never heard of. If you were to say, oh, he probably did obscure buildings, then I would have to say, oh, was the world trade center in New York obscure? He also designed the Century towers in Century City California, and the St. Louis Lamhert Airport Terminal. All his designs were full of light and air, because he wanted that for people.

Written by his granddaughter, this is a very simplified story of his life, but it also explains the hardship he faced being a Japanese-American, and how he had to work twice as hard to get where his white colleagues got. He wasn't interned during World War 2, simply because he was living in New York at the time, but his parents had to come and live with him, because they had their store taken from them, and would have been interred with the other members of his family that weren't so lucky.

In the back of the picture book, it goes over in more detail what he went through and some of the more famous buildings he designed. Amazing story, and so glad it was written.



<em>Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.</em>

This picture book biography tells the story of the author's grandfather, a Japanese American who faced adversity in trying to attend college and earn a degree during the time between the world wars. Due to excessive amounts of racism towards Japanese people, especially closer to WWII, the experience of Japanese Americans was very difficult during the mid 1900s. The author mixes the positive parts of her grandfather's life with the challenges he faced and also compares them to the racism and destruction created surrounding 9/11 in NYC. As an architect, her grandfather had a passion for buildings and even though he was not alive when the towers fell, the author was able to share the grief he would have felt in a way that young children would understand. The book ends with an extensive author's note about her grandfather and his studies of architecture and his challenges facing racism.

I think this book would be great for teachers wanting to teach about diversity, racism and inclusion both in America's past and where we are today. I think it is also a great opportunity for teachers to show students that even if someone faces significant challenges related poverty and discrimination, it is possible to persevere. I also love that this book shows both sides of architecture: a science and an artform. Picturebook biographies are very popular right now and I think this book would be no exception! I would highly recommend it to parens and teachers of children in the 6-10 age range. Thanks so much to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me the opportunity to read and review this great book!

Beautiful illustrates to coincide with a beautiful story. While there is a stark and heavy theme being discussed in this storybook I think it’s an important one to be told. What is uncomfortable to read, is a sign of the uncomfortability of that experience. Diverse books like this are incredibly important and I think this a fantastic addition to the literature. A fantastic story of an underrrated Japanese architect who’s story should definitely be heard by all.

This is a wonderful picture book biography. So much is packed into such a short read! Katie Yamasaki is able to share the achievements and hardships her grandfather experienced through the lens of a young reader. She touches on anti-asian hate, Japanese internment camps, and even red-lining in a way that provokes curiosity in a young reader to seek out more on Japanese American history. The drawings of her grandfather’s work accompanied throughout the book are beautiful. I can’t believe that I am just learning about him, his name, and his work from this book. I would definitely recommend this book to educators at my school, as well as read it with my students and daughter.

Thank you Netgalley and W.W. Norton & Company, Norton Young Readers for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is a well-told, insightful biography of Minoru Yamasaki, the author's grandfather. His caring, insight, and architectural ability shines through. Readers learn about the challenges he faced because of prejudice towards Japanese-Americans, but also of his resilience, his desire to succeed, his artistic vision and abilities, and his love of family, An author's note provides even more information and illustrations of his architectural works. A glowing tribute to a meaningful, productive life, by his granddaughter, Katie Yamasaki, a well-known muralist and author. There are many lessons to be learned for considering Minoru Yamasaki's life story. The illustrations, too, beautifully evoke his architectural works.

I absolutely love picture book biographies, and Katie Yamasaki's Shapes, Lines, and Light is no exception. The story is deep, yet simply told for even the youngest readers to understand. The adoration for the work her grandfather had done and the struggle he faced leaps off the pages through Yamasaki's words. The art is also beautiful and complements the story so well. This story taught me more about the prejudices against Japanese Americans than I had previously known. Very informative, lovingly written, and beautifully drawn.