The Asian Reporter's
BOOK REVIEWS

From The Asian Reporter, V17, #22 (May 29, 2007), page 16.

By Allen Say

Houghton Mifflin, 1989

Paperback, 32 pages, $6.95

By Josephine Bridges

Summer vacation at Dad’s may start out boring, but it doesn’t end up that way. After a month working at the drawing board in his home office, the narrator’s father in Allen Say’s The Lost Lake notices that his son Luke — fresh out of books to read, tired of television — has cut "pictures of mountains and rivers and lakes" out of old magazines and put them up on the wall of his room. Thus begins a quest for the Lost Lake. Dad, who is usually grumpy in the morning, smiles when Luke asks, "How can you lose a lake?"

"No one’s found it, that’s how," replies Luke’s father. "Grandpa and I used to go there a long time ago. It was our special place, so don’t tell any of your friends." Father and son strap on backpacks, and Luke hopes that Dad is joking when he tells the boy he didn’t bring any food: "We’ll have to catch our dinner, you know." Luke is tired and hungry when they finally reach the lake, where dozens of people are fishing, swimming, boating, and sunning themselves. "Welcome to the Found Lake," mutters Dad before he turns around and walks away.

"Then it started to rain." Luke’s poncho keeps him dry until the two settle into their cozy tent and a dinner of salami and dried apricots. It’s Luke’s idea to press on farther into the mountains: "Maybe we can find our own lake." Later, upon learning that they are sharing the forest they’ve entered in their cross-country trek with bears, Luke wonders if they should have stayed put, but a fire, freeze-dried beef stroganoff, and shooting stars cheer the boy up.

"You seem like a different person up here," Luke confides to his father. "You talk more." But what greets the two when they wake up the next morning takes them both beyond words.

Allen Say claims to be a misanthrope, but I’d argue that he just doesn’t care for people in gaggles. In the warming relationship between the father and son in The Lost Lake, many of the best qualities of human beings come to light. Allen Say doesn’t just write, of course, he illustrates his wise and simple words with watercolors that make you want to hike into the mountains with someone you love. And if you’re like Luke and his father, you may find something even better than what you were looking for.