A. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Lin, G. (2018). The year of the dog. New York: Little, Brown.
B. PLOT SUMMARY
The Year of the Dog is a semi-autobiographical account of a year of author Grace Lin's life when she was a young girl. The Chinese New Year is right around the corner, and Grace's family is getting ready for the Year of the Dog. Grace is told that this year is going to be one filled with luck, friendship, and finding herself. She is very unsure of what she wants to be when she grows up or where her true 'talents' lie, so she is worried that she will not find something that she is good at by year's end.
When a new girl, Melody, arrives at school one day, Grace is excited to see another Asian American student her age. Melody and Grace have an immediate connection, and soon they form a tight friendship. The girls take turns going to the other's house, and they even partner up for the Science Fair. The two girls form an experiment where they water plants with different liquids, including milk, soda, and orange juice. Grace believes science might just be the thing she wants to do when she gets older, but after the girls receive a disappointing evaluation of their project, Grace continues to search for the thing she wants to be when she gets older.
As the year continues on, Grace's teacher informs her class about an upcoming contest where students will create their own books with unique ideas and illustrations. Grace is initially very excited about the contest, but she struggles to think of a topic to write about. After spending some time thinking, and after being told she could not be Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz play that her class put on, Grace decides that she wants to create a book about Asian Americans. She feels that there are not any books with characters that look like her, and so she sets out to write one of her own. But while she knows she wants the book to be about Asian Americans, she does not know what specifically to write about. After spending some time working with her mother in their garden, Grace has the idea to write about the ugly vegetables that are growing there.
Grace receives an A+ from her teacher on her book, but they are told that they will not know who wins the contest until the next school year. Summer arrives, and Grace takes a trip with Melody and her family to TAC - a conference for Taiwanese Americans. There, her and Melody have a lot of fun together, until Melody's family have to leave. While at TAC alone, Grace is called a 'Twinkie' by some other girls for not being able to speak Chinese or Taiwanese. This hurts Grace badly, but she does not tell her parents about the incident. As Summer comes to an end and the girls return to school, they find out that they are in the same class again. At a Halloween costume contest, Melody wins first place, leaving Grace feeling dejected once more. However, soon after this, Grace is notified that she has won 4th place in the book contest, and she receives $400, but more importantly, she finds what she wants to do when she grows up.
C. CRITICAL ANALYSIS
The most critical portion of this book to me were the following lines:
"'You can't be Dorothy," she said. "Dorothy's not Chinese."
Suddenly, the world went silent. Like a melting icicle, my dream of being Dorothy fell and shattered on the ground. I felt like a dirty puddle after the rain. All the girls continued singing, but I couldn't hear them. Becky was right. Dorothy wasn't Chinese. I was SO dumb. How could I have thought about being Dorothy? I'd never get chosen. It was stupid to even try."
The fact that a classmate said this to Grace is heartbreaking enough, but the fact that this made perfect sense to her is devastating. For a child to feel dumb for even considering trying out for a part in a play should never have to happen. This section really summed up the entire book to me. All Grace wanted was to feel accepted. She had grown up being confused and torn between these two worlds. She even had two names and had to switch between them just to make life easier for the English speakers that might struggle to pronounce her 'Chinese name'. To make matters worse, Grace was also treated poorly by other Asian American children for not speaking Chinese or Taiwanese. This identity crisis is not uncommon for anyone from a different background in this country, but it is a tragedy that someone so young had to experience all of this.
Grace is an inspiration for identifying an issue in her own life and doing something about it. She acknowledged that there are few, if any, representations of Asian American people in movies, on TV, or even in the books that she reads. Instead of waiting around for someone else to change this, she took it in her own hands to create a book that she felt represented who she was. Grace Lin adds this in the Author's Note at the end of the book:
Growing up Asian in a mainly Caucasian community was not a miserable and gloomy experience. But it was different. I wrote The Year of the Dog, because I felt that it was important to have a book that addressed those differences in a real and upbeat way. I wrote it because it was the book I wished I had had when I was growing up, a book that had someone like me in it.
I felt that these lines were incredibly powerful, and they just go to show that just because someone isn't miserable or that they don't grow up in poverty, doesn't mean that everything is perfect. I am thankful for authors like Grace Lin that fight for representation and equitable treatment for all.
D. REVIEW EXCERPTS
"Lin does a remarkable job capturing the soul and spirit of books like those of Hayward or Maud Hart Lovelace, reimagining them through the lens of her own story, and transforming their special qualities into something new for today's young readers."
--Booklist, starred review
"This comfortable first-person story will be a treat for Asian-American girls looking to see themselves in their reading, but also for any reader who enjoys stories of friendship and family life."
--Kirkus Reviews
"Lin creates an endearing protagonist, realistically dealing with universal emotions and situations. Girls everywhere, but especially those in the Asian-American community, will find much to embrace here."
--Publishers Weekly
E. CONNECTIONS
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