The Year of the Dog
By Grace Lin
The Year of the Dog is a sweet coming-of-age chapter book.
It opens at the beginning of a new year when Grace, an American girl of Taiwanese descent, decides the Year of the Dog is going to be her year.
Grace wants to find her talent. At the same time, she explores the differences between her culture and American culture. The most tender moments come when Grace’s parents relay their childhood memories and give readers a window into her roots.
Grace and her sisters are on their own at school until Melody, another Asian girl, arrives. The girls become friends, enter a science fair together, and share their love of food. By the end of the year, the girls survive school and all of the pitfalls — a boy is involved in one of them — that come with it.
This was a fun read. Drawings by a small hand punctuate the chapters, and the text takes readers back to the innocent school days. The Year of the Dog is for readers in grades 3-5. While Simone falls a bit short of that mark, I handed the book over to her and she is enjoying it. Check it out.
No TV. No radio. Spotty cell phone coverage. Weak Wi-Fi. Eight children’s book writers staying in knotty pine cabins and attending workshops in a barn. Peaceful. Reflective. Rural. This is The Highlights Foundation.
When I saw the cabins, I knew I was in the right place. I turned the key in the door and walked into a rustic space. Two twin beds took up residence in front of the cabin. A small table at the door had two flashlights and four batteries. A small refrigerator housed a few sodas. An exposed closet sat at the ready. On the back wall, there was a writing desk and a mirror. A small bathroom, complete with a tub, was tucked in the far corner. I turned on the heat and waited. Tick, tick, tick. The heater worked. I was in business.
I didn’t miss the television or the radio. I needed the quiet after talking about Creating an Authentic Cultural Voice in children’s books with all those creative types. I needed time to reflect, gather my thoughts, to get a few winks of sleep.
Before I left for Honesdale, Pa., I checked my feelings. I knew there would be writers there who would write about races other than their own. How did I feel about that? I knew I had read books written by whites about black characters. Did it matter? I wasn’t sure. All that mattered was that someone told the story in an authentic voice, right?
I don’t think I’ve had a problem with writers crossing cultural boundaries. As a newspaper journalist, I watched journalists cover the black community. Some black writers flourished while covering the community they knew so well, while others resented the assignment. I also watched white writers cover the black community. Many of them had trouble cultivating sources, but there were those — more than a few — who transcended race, reporting and writing stories no one else could find.
Authors Donna Jo Napoli and Mitali Perkins lead workshops with titles about who owns a story and who decides what is an authentic voice. Mitali said that writers who cross cultural borders must possess three qualities: imagination, research, and empathy. Donna Jo says: “Don’t make it up when it comes to culture. If you do that to children, you’re lying to them.” The bottom line for me is research. Those who do their research and find authentic people to help them produce beautiful work.
The trip was part of my journey to publication. If the inscriptions in the journal in my cabin are any guide, there were many writers and illustrators who came before me and many more will come after me. The best parts: seeing a short snow flurry in April, meeting a gate keeper and receiving feedback on my work, eating good food with excellent company, coming home with ideas, and bringing children’s books and magazines to Simone and Nadia.
Why do they show the same commercials over and over again?
Nadia, wondering aloud about TV commercials.
The rain drummed on the windshield as I steered my SUV onto U.S. 82 for the final leg of the trip.
I had vowed not to return to Alabama, to go home. I had cast it aside as racially ignorant, backward. There I was, though, with the windshield wipers turned on high, driving along a skinny stretch of highway as Simone and Nadia, 2 and 8 months, dozed in the back seat.
I was going home to Tuscaloosa, my mother’s hometown.
I reminisced as I drove the final leg of that journey. I passed a private school, where I had watched all of my girlfriends compete in a pageant. There was the armory, where I had attended a dance, and the hill, where my high school sweetheart’s family lived.
I guess it’s not so bad, I thought.
I was more familiar with U.S. 82 than I wanted to admit. I had sat alongside Ken as he drove the two of us to University of Alabama football games, and I had slept in the backseat as my parents drove us to visit relatives. Ken had attended the university and told me about all his good times there. Mom didn’t think much of the city, except for the mud pies she made – and ate – while growing up.
I thought about all of this as I traveled down the highway that morning.
A canopy of trees hung over the slick asphalt road. The rain eased a bit, and country churches broke up the landscape along with barbecue joints and an occasional group of cows.
Maybe I could learn to like it, I told myself. After all, I met Ken here.
Ken had long accepted the state and all of her civil rights blemishes. I was determined to run from them, setting up temporary roots in Tennessee and Florida instead.
I couldn’t escape the tug of Alabama. Ken and I would visit family and friends. I would start thinking about a permanent stay the moment we stepped in the rental car. We would inventory all of the pluses — family and friends, more affordable homes, a slower pace. I would sum up all the negatives– small cities, less to do, a slower pace. Ken had no trouble going home, but I was happy to visit and quickly return to less conservative climes, where folks didn’t see the need to plaster the rear windows of their trucks with the Confederate flag. I managed to set aside those thoughts – the good and the bad. Maybe one day, I told myself, but not now.
One day came sooner than I thought. That was why I was on that stretch of 82, clutching the steering wheel, still afraid of two-lane highways. This time I had chosen to return instead of having the state thrust upon me. When I was a child, Dad was in the Air Force, which had decided where we lived every few years. This time I had signed off on all the details and orchestrated the moved. Still, a part of me wished it weren’t so. Maybe Ken had been kidding when he told me he had gotten a new job. Maybe Ken had been joking when he said he had started searching for our new home.
I knew that wasn’t true. The hurricanes of 2004 marked the beginning of the end of our stay in Florida. Hurricane insurance premiums increased exponentially. Our three-bedroom, two-bathroom stucco house became less and less affordable. By the time Hurricane Katrina ripped pieces of the roof off the Superdome, it was clear we had better find a new place to call home, a more affordable place to live. By then, we had had Simone and Alabama was again pulling on us. After Nadia was born, we had decided to pull up our stakes and head north to the Deep South. The move made sense in so many ways. The girls would be close to their grandparents. Ken could once again watch his beloved Crimson Tide at Bryant-Denny Stadium, and I could research a book about my late mother, who had been born in Tuscaloosa some 60 years ago.
Maybe I didn’t give the state a chance, I said to myself.
The rain stopped and gave way to an overcast sky. At last, U.S. 82 became a four-lane highway and the flat earth turned hilly for a while. Simone and Nadia awakened just a few miles from our new home, and I wondered what they would think.
I called Ken, the man I had fallen in love with all those years earlier, for the final instructions. He had somehow gotten me to do something I had thought impossible.
“You’re close,” he said. “You’re almost here.”
He was wrong. I was almost home.
Hap-py birrrrrth-day toooooooo meeeeeee. Hap-py birrrrrth-day toooooooo meeeeeee.
Nadia, singing Happy Birthday to herself.
What makes someone have racists thoughts even when they don’t want to have them? Toure, a columnist for Time, provides some answers. Check it out.
It’s too small to call it an office. So, I’m calling it a nook. It’s the one place in the house where I can find a little peace and quiet — and it’s inside my closet.
Earlier this year, I decided to just write the darn book. I’m easily distracted and needed a place where I could shut out the world. The closet works. It’s perfect for writing because it has no TV, spotty wi-fi coverage, and a door. Sure, I’d like a window to just stare when my mind wanders and it’d be nice to have the calming effects of a small water fountain. A window would make this little project unfeasible, and there’s no plug for a fountain. For now, pictures are a stand-in for the missing window, and I haven’t given up hope of finding an acceptable battery-operated water fountain.
There is a small chalkboard for writing inspiration and deadlines, and I’ve decorated the nook with family photos and items I cherished or made when I was a child. I shamelessly stole a tiny chair from the girls. I use it as a floor pillow of sorts. A kidney shaped portable desk makes it comfortable for me to write from a very low post.
The “desk” has been fashioned out of a shelf and brackets purchased at the local home improvement store. The “curtain” is a piece of outdoor fabric, and the chair is from Ikea. The only other expense was for the red and black bins that were found at the local discount store. I already owned everything else.
I highly recommend one of these for any and all mommies who need a moment to themselves. In fact, I think we should start a movement. You’ve heard of the Man Cave. Well, this is the Mommy Nook.
How and where do you find a moment of peace?
