My Father’s House

In this tale inspired by the author’s own experiences, a child explores her father’s childhood home in Iran. As the sun rises, the narrator and her father start their journey at “the ancient temple” in Isfahan, while carefully rendered chukar partridges perch in the foreground. With matter-of-fact storytelling, naming specific neighborhoods and monuments, the girl recounts what she learns from her father’s friends, who take them around the city. They visit a synagogue, a church, and a mosque, noting the “people of all beliefs” who “celebrate the city they built together, side by side.” The dreamy, watercolorlike illustrations are at their most saturated, detailed, and showstopping when depicting the blue-and-gold-tile paintings covering the inside of the mosque—and the mouthwatering saffron rice, pomegranate sauce, figs, and radishes at the family’s dinner table. After a peaceful evening with her father, his mother, his grandma, and his childhood nanny, the girl falls asleep, dreaming of future adventures. Tinged with love and affection, the narrative concludes with an author’s note that offers more information on Isfahan’s history and reveals that Javaherbin and her father left Iran following the 1979 revolution, along with others “who chose the hardships of immigration over living under a new oppressive regime.”

“My father and I are explorers! Today, we explore Isfahan, his childhood home in Iran,” begins this work of intergenerational memory. Gentle, naif-style spreads visualize the duo’s climb to an ancient temple, followed by visits and a picnic with two old friends. Along the way, father and daughter pass a synagogue and later enter a small mosque at the city center, whose intricate ornamentation Yankey traces with care. When, at last, they arrive at the father’s former home, his childhood nanny and grandmother are preparing dinner. The family eats together, a meal pictured in deliciously colored close focus, then prepares for bed (“The samovar is emptied... and the pigeons are locked in their coop”). Underscoring Isfahan’s long multicultural history and recalling specific Iranian lifeways, Javaherbin ends with a reflection on traveling: “When you bring your own light,” the protagonist’s father tells her, “the world becomes your home.”