Reinterpretation of Fernand Léger

“Why do I have to go to work leaving my precious son behind?”
It sounded silly but I asked myself this question every morning when I left my son at the daycare center – my son might think the other way like Thomas in this book.
This question kept coming into my head until I came across Fernand Léger (1881–1955), a French painter, sculptor, and filmmaker whose work was engaged with the life of workers and his feeling for the beauty of machinery.

Though his work did not present the exact answer to my question, it helped me realize that I had already known the beauty of workers’ life but I just did not admit that beauty. So I reinterpreted Fernand Léger’ idea and illustrated it in this book. After finishing this story, I read it aloud to myself and thought
“I guess this story is more for me than my son after all. Thanks, Fernand!”

Joseph Fernand Henri Léger
(February 4, 1881 – August 17, 1955) was a French painter, sculptor, and filmmaker. He started his art in early cubism and developed a style in which the human figure in relation to the modern times was his central aim to represent. He and his art was engaged with communism and with the worker’s life.

Author’s Note

My wife and I go to work every day. It has been my job to take my son to a children’s daycare center since my wife left home earlier than me. My son usually cried when my wife went to work or when he had to go to his children’s daycare center. Each morning I had to leave my son behind, and my heart fell and felt sad for the rest of the day. At first I tried in vain to clown myself or to reprimand him in order to stop crying. Then I began to tell him that his mom and I were playing an important role in our office and had a good time with our co-workers. I am not sure whether my sun no longer cry in a year after they are accustomed to temporarily saying goodbye to their working mom and dad. Or they finally understand that parents still love them though they leave them for work.

The purpose of this story is not necessarily to make kids understand why their parents go to work. Instead, I hope this book will offer parents an opportunity to show their heart to their kids when thet are at work. If kids and parents look at each other’s eyes, I don’t think it does matter whether kids can understand why their parents leave them for work or not.