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Book Review: The Year of the Dog by Grace Lin
New book a "must-read" for an underserved age
group among Asian-American youth
By Frances Kai-Hwa Wang, IMDiversity.com Asian
American Village contributing editor
“How come Chinese people are never important?” I asked Melody.
“What do you mean?” she said. “We’re important.”
“No, we’re not,” I said. “You never see a Chinese person in
the movies or in a play or in a book. No one Chinese is important.”
“There are Chinese movie stars,” Melody said, “and the woman
that does the news is Chinese.”
“Not a lot, though,” I said. “And there are none in books.
Whenever we do a school play, it’s always from books and none of the
characters are Chinese. We did Cinderella, Peter Pan, Alice in
Wonderland—nobody in books is Chinese.”
“There must be,” Melody said. “Just because the school hasn’t
done a play about a Chinese person doesn’t mean there aren’t any.”
Melody and I went to the library and asked for a Chinese book.
We looked at the book The Seven Chinese Brothers.
“See,” Melody said, “Chinese people.”
“Those aren’t real Chinese people, though,” I said. “Your
brother doesn’t have a ponytail.”
--from The Year of the Dog by Grace Lin, 2006
(Little, Brown, and Co., New York)
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One of my first Asian American “Ah ha!” moments came when reading
Maxine Hong Kingston’s Woman Warrior—the scene where she wonders
why people think that Chinese American girls are nice and quiet, when
Chinese women are so bossy and loud. She describes Cantonese women
eating and gesturing and talking loudly in very guttural Cantonese in
restaurants. Suddenly something clicked in my head. I had also always
struggled to live up to the nice and quiet Chinese girl image, while my
six aunties and six great aunties are certainly nothing if not bossy and
loud, every last one of them bossier and louder than the next (and we
don’t even speak Cantonese). No delicate cherry blossom Madame Butterfly
types here. Without a friend or a book to note the obvious, however, I
had completely missed that contradiction that was right in front of me
my whole life.
Grace Lin’s debut novel, The Year of the Dog, part memoir part
fiction, is another book full of these “Ah ha!” moments that both our
children and we will appreciate. The book is written for an elementary
to middle school audience, but the adventures and questions of these
plucky second-grade characters will resonate with us all. Author Grace
Lin writes that this is the book she wished she had had when she was
growing up. I wish I had had it, too.
These days there are more and more APA picture books, historical APA
books, and APA middle/high school coming-of-age novels on the market,
but I think there is a still a real paucity of books for those children
who can already read by themselves (about second to sixth grades) but
are not quite ready to learn about the harsh realities of racism,
bullying, popularity, and dating. (There is Lensey Namioka’s series of
books about the irrepressible Yang family learning to adjust to life in
America, Lawrence Yep’s The Imp that Ate my Homework and
Chinatown Mysteries series, and Lisa Yee’s Millicent Min Girl
Genius.) This is the perfect book for that age group. (My first,
fourth, and sixth graders all highly recommend it, and they never enjoy
the same books.)
In The Year of the Dog, many identity issues are handled with
humor, grace and ease. The main character is not rebellious or
traumatized or tortured (except by her older sister), but she does
wonder aloud about a lot about things. She tries to make sense of
situations that we have all been through—showing our children that they
are not the only one—like being mistaken for the one other Chinese girl
in school, deciphering seemingly crazy family customs (and family
members), being forced to go to Chinese family camp to make Chinese
friends, trying to figure out the difference between being Chinese and
Taiwanese, and trying to understand why there are no Chinese American
characters in books or plays.
Parents will appreciate that the mother is written with wisdom and
calm—meaning not crazy—full of stories that show that even though she
grew up in Taiwan, she understands her child’s experience in America.
The father is funny and written with good humor. Both parents are smart,
easy-going, English-speaking, middle-class professionals.
The story also features two—count them, TWO!—Chinese-American
protagonists and their families, both of which are very different—again
showing our children that not all Chinese Americans are alike—one child
speaks Chinese and the other does not; one mother can cook and the other
cannot; one child is in the orchestra and one child is in the school
play. One child is slightly “more Chinese” than the other, but they
learn and figure things out together.
The book is also really laugh-out-loud funny! The writing is easy and
colorful and obviously written by an artist: “After the book project was
over, the days disappeared like dumplings on a plate. The sun shone with
the yellow of summer and the wind blew a breeze that felt like it came
from an oven.” The pages are also punctuated with Grace Lin’s delightful
line drawings…including instructions on “How to Draw a Dog.”
Everyone simply must read this book!
 About
the Author
(from www.gracelin.com)
Grace Lin grew up in Upstate New York with her parents
and two sisters. While the other sisters became scientists,
Grace became an artist. Surprisingly enough, being an artist
was not Grace’s first choice. She first dreamed of being a
champion ice skater, and drew many pictures of herself
twirling and dancing on the ice. Unfortunately, Grace had
neither the talent nor coordination to make it to skating
stardom. However, the pictures she drew of herself held much
promise and quickly became Grace’s career focus. After
attending the Rhode Island School of Design, Grace quickly
set out to achieve her dream of creating children’s books.
Her first book,
THE UGLY VEGETABLES, was published in 1999 and was
quickly heralded. As well as being an American Booksellers
Association’s “Pick of the List” and a Bank’s Street College
Best Books of the Year, THE UGLY VEGETABLES was
nominated for the California Young Reader Children’s Choice
Award and named a Growing Good Kids Book Award CLASSIC.
Grace followed that success with the publication of over
a dozen more books, including
DIM SUM FOR EVERYONE!,
FORTUNE COOKIE FORTUNES, and
OLVINA FLIES. Her book
ROBERT’S SNOW became the inspiration for the cancer
fighting fundraiser, Robert’s Snow: For Cancer’s Cure (www.robertssnow.com)
and was featured on NBC’s Today Show.
Grace lives in Somerville, MA with her husband Robert
Mercer. Please visit her website:
www.gracelin.com for more info.
Her companion essay, "Don’t
Judge a Book by its Character (even if it is Chinese): Why I
Wrote the Year of the Dog,"
can be downloaded in PDF format (requires Adobe Reader)
Grace Lin. Photo Credit:
Morgan Pace |
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