Beloved Po Po died.”A refrain that marks each milestone in the brothers’ lives is the matter-of-fact observation that the world, and just about everything in it, is both “beautiful and terrible” at the same time. There is no attempt in this book, whose illustrations were painted by the Zhous themselves, to paper over how difficult it has been for the siblings to work shoulder to shoulder over the decades. “How dare you destroy my work?” one says to the other during a confrontation. At its core, the book is about staring down adversity with passion and humility. We are reminded that though the act of weathering life’s many ups and downs is difficult, it is mostly worth the trouble.

Source: New York Times November 06, 2020 06:10 UTC