The age-old tattoo tradition is loud and proud in modern American culture, and in Alison McGhee's (Firefly Hollow; Bink and Gollie: Two for One) picture book Tell Me a Tattoo Story, a young boy asks his father, once again, to share the stories behind his ink. Just as Pluto losing its planet status took a while to seep into children's literature, perhaps the U.S.'s now-mainstream relationship with body art is starting to do the same.
The book opens to a celadon-washed scene of peaceful domesticity. Hip Dad is drying the dishes, while hip Mom reads in the other room. When his young son tugs at the hem of his undershirt, Dad says, "You wanna see my tattoos?/ Why, little man, you always want to see my tattoos. Here we go then." (The boy never speaks, but makes his questions clear to his dad somehow, because his dad always repeats them before he starts telling his tales.) Dad's intricate, delicately wrought tattoos embody major touchstones in his life: his loving parents, meeting his wife, his military service, the birth of his son. He tells his ever-inquisitive son the stories, tattoo by tattoo, through bath time and all the way to bedtime.
The boy knows that the mountain dragon inked on his father's shoulder is from his favorite childhood book, and at that point Eliza Wheeler's (Miss Maple's Seeds) cozy, golden-hued illustration recalls the father's mother reading out loud from The Ho****. (The title is cut off, but bets are on The Hobbit.) The upper-arm tattoo of fireworks and a Ferris wheel reminds his dad of a pretty girl: "Have you ever met her? You sure have." (It's the boy's mother, a woman his father met when she was waiting tables at the Café de l'amour.) The father's torso tattoo is of a Middle Eastern desert landscape, and the illustrated flashback shows him as a soldier, trudging. The last tattoo, over his father's heart, is a little heart, with the boy's birthday inked inside: July 22, 2012. That one is the boy's favorite--and his dad's favorite, too.
Wheeler uses India ink with dip pens and watercolors to make the tattoos spring to life, just as the affection and memories behind the tattoos live and breathe for the boy. Tattoos of ships, dragons, skulls, hearts, waves, fish, fields, keys and numbers mesh in a magical jumble on the endpapers. The illustrations capture the tenderness between the father and son, mother and son, and the love between the boy's father and the mother. Tell Me a Tattoo Story is a tale of love and ink and the staying power that both promise. --Karin Snelson, children's & YA editor, Shelf Awareness
Shelf Talker: A boy asks his father to explain the stories behind his many tattoos in Alison McGhee and Eliza Wheeler's winning picture book for the inked generations.