Author Grace Lin writes that this is the book she wished she had had when she was growing up. 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. 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. 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. No delicate cherry blossom Madame Butterfly types here. 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). She describes Cantonese women eating and gesturing and talking loudly in very guttural Cantonese in restaurants. 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.
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