Every Wrinkle Has a Story

There’s a lot more than glasses on the faces of most grandparents. This reviewer’s granddaughter regularly draws her fingers down the lines of my face, commenting, “You’re soooo old, Baba.”

As if I didn’t know.

Noted Israeli writer David Grossman (To the End of the World, A Horse Walks Into a Bar), who is of a similar vintage as me, must have small children tracing the lines on his face. He’s captured the curiosity and unfiltered frankness of most children in his picture book for young people, Every Wrinkle Has a Story.

Grandpa Amnon picks up his grandson Yotam at kindergarten every Tuesday, and, as a regular treat, they stop at Aviva’s café on the way home where “they sit down at a table in the corner, and Grandpa sips coffee while Yotam drinks grape juice.”

It’s a custom that allows Grandpa to pamper his grandson, for Yotam to feel special, and for the two of them to get to bond. Yotam asks where Grandpa got his wrinkles, and the conversation begins about what caused sad wrinkles and happy wrinkles, the analogy to roots and waves upon the sea. Grandpa sums up his life in wrinkles, ending with his happiest wrinkle, which came about when Yotam was born.

I kept smiling all the time. I smiled when I walked,

I even smiled when I was asleep,

and eventually I got this wrinkle.

Yotam feels inspired to turn his new understanding into art and draws

circles and lines, faces and wrinkles.

Grandpa Amnon sits looking at his grandson and smiling to himself,

and his wrinkles smile with him.

Ninamasina is the professional name for Anna Masini, a prolific illustrator and textile designer living in Milan, Italy. Her spare, finely-drawn images, using variations of mostly soft blues and gold watercolours on a white background, prompt a reader to pause, much like Grandpa and Yotam are doing at the restaurant. Her illustrations are simple yet packed with meaning as the fingers of Yotam’s hand slide up a single gold line drawn across a page. The tender physical connection will evoke smiles from anyone whose face has been explored for meaning by a small child. Yotam’s art is full of colour and optimism as befits a young child whose wrinkles are yet to come.

The book is rendered into beautiful English by British-Israeli-American translator, Jessica Cohen.

This is Grossman’s second picture book, on top of an opera and poems for children. Every Wrinkle Has a Story is gentle tale, subtly-illustrated and will be popular with families. It can be used by elders as an entry to tell children stories about their lives.