When I was growing up, our family traveled to Oregon every year for a reunion of my father's mother's family, and as we drove through, we would always stop in Ashland to stretch our legs and sample some Lithia water. My parents and I would often walk around the Elizabethan theater, too. That left me with a sense of magic and wonder to the place, the home of the world-famous Oregon Shakespeare Festival. So as an adult I started going with my friends to see the plays each year. We would drive in to a campground, set up our tents, and make our way into downtown Ashland for the plays. The first year that I didn't camp, I was in my twenties, and I drove up with my best friend Tuan. Because we were in a motel, we had a lot more time in town than I had spent on any previous trip. It felt strange for some reason, vaguely unsettling, but we couldn't put our fingers on why. Tuan eventually identified it: he was the only Asian person around! We'd grown up in an area of the country that was and is especially culturally diverse, and our city was particularly so. In fact, the city where we grew up was famously a favorite choice for focus group studies because there was no ethnic majority - every ethnicity is a minority in Milpitas - so even the idea of being in a place without ethnic diversity was weird, much less the surreal actual experience of Ashland (1).So reading The Year of the Dog was alien, for me. Growing up with friends from Taiwan, I found a lot familiar, but the idea that the narrator Pacy was the only Asian girl in school was unreal. But eventually I realized that this is a testament to Grace Lin's writing skill: she's written the story so timelessly that I hadn't realized this was a story about her childhood when she was growing up, and probably that was long enough ago that upstate New York back then did have so few Asian residents that a lunch lady would mistake two Taiwanese as the same person. Or maybe the place is still a cultural backwater with little diversity, like Atherton or Saratoga around here. I just found it hard to relate to, is all. In that way (and also in the writing style), it reminded me of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books: good stories about life in a time and place outside of my experience. It is written in a way that makes it seem current, because a lot of how schools are run has changed very little in the last sixty years (2).The story is funny and told in a great framework, in which the narrator, Pacy, alternates accounts of her own experiences at home and school with fable-like anecdotes from her mother about events in her life, often set in Taiwan. It really makes for delightful reading, and I could see this becoming a series of books like the Wilder stories. Certainly I will be on the lookout for more of what Lin was written.1 - Later in the trip, we found ourselves hankering for Chinese food, and stopped at what was then the only Chinese restaurant in Ashland: Panda Garden. Realizing that Ashland was all white people was unsettling, but we still didn't get what that meant for food options. Eating at this place was a shock. We ordered chow mein and fried won tons, but what we got was so alien I referred to it ever after as "Chinese food from Mars." We got what was effectively stroganoff and corn chips, as if someone had crawled into Ashland centuries before and tried to describe Chinese food with his last breaths, but died before actually getting to ingredients or an actual recipe. That incomplete description had been passed down in an oral tradition for generations, and the society continued in that vacuum for hundreds of years, making the food of ancient legend without any direct experience.Reading this book, I recognize all of the foods, as I have eaten them all (almond cookies and dumplings have been favorites of mine since I was younger than Pacy in this story). But I can hardly imagine what people who've never had the foods described might think, much less what they would make if given the task of preparing any of the stuff mentioned in The Year of the Dog.2 - Not saying that Grace Lin is in her 70s - for all I know she's in her 20s - but this story could believably be set at any time within the last six decades or so, because she's written it so skillfully.
So you know I like to exaggerate, right, friends? And typically make grand statements about nothing in particular, and it’s very hard to tell when I’m serious or not?The Year of the Dog is the most adorable book I have read this year. Hands down.True, the year is young! There is still plenty of time for Grace Lin and her fantasticalness to be usurped! But for the moment, this book is winning like the winner it is.Ms. Lin explains in her author’s note, “Growing up Asian in a mainly Caucasian community was not a miserable and gloomy existence. But it was different. I wrote [The Year of the Dog] because it was the book I wished I had had when I was growing up, a book that had someone like me in it.” That... basically 100% sums up this book. It’s not sad. It’s not Oh Woe I Am An Outsider. It’s just Pacy/Grace living her life, being slightly different.So she frets that she can’t be in The Wizard of Oz, because there were no Chinese munchkins. She hates that when she asks the librarian for a book with Chinese protagonists, she ends up with The Five Chinese Brothers. (“These aren’t real Chinese people,” she complains to her best friend. “Your brother doesn’t have a ponytail.”) And she’s exasperated with her parents’ inability to be more American. (Her Dad flings Christmas lights onto bushes in huge, messy blobs, with the bulbs “flashing frantically for help,” and justifies it by saying that “if a bush were ever to grow electric, rainbow-colored blinking lights, I’m sure it would look more like our bush than anyone else’s.” Oh Dad you ruin everything.)But at the same time, she’s hanging out with her friends, and dying eggs, and eating M&Ms, and drawing puppy dogs, and entering the science fair (“He said we were seriously flawed!” her friend Melody wails. “That’s scientist talk for terrible!”) and dressing up for Halloween. It’s pretty much an average year in the life of a grade school student, cultural background notwithstanding, although the cultural background is always present, like a secondary character.It does mean there’s not much in the way of serious crises for our heroine to face. Her siblings aren’t cruel, her parents really seem to possess a good sense of humor about daughter-rearing, and while she deals with the occasional Mean Girl, her childhood appears to be pretty solid.“If I win the book contest, will I cry?” I asked.“Yes,” Mom said. “Very hard.”“We’ll all cry,” Dad said. “I’ll buy a box of Kleenex just for the occasion.”As an added bonus, her mother’s family anecdotes are sprinkled throughout the text. They have a certain flow to them that suggests they really have been told numerous times; I’d be interested to know if Grace wrote them down the way she remembered hearing them from her mother.When Grandpa graduated from medical school and was officially a doctor, he was so proud! But he had a problem. He had no patients. It seemed like whenever people were sick, they went to someone else. No one wanted to go and see Grandpa, a young doctor with no experience.Still, with the help of his parents he opened a small clinic in the neighborhood. Sometimes his mother would come over saying she had back pains so he could cure her. Sometimes Grandpa would use the stethoscope on himself, just to make sure it was working. But most of the time, Grandpa just sat there alone, like the last dumpling on a plate.Remember what I said about this book being adorable? Fact.
What do You think about The Year Of The Dog (2007)?
Pacy has been told its a good year for friends, family, and " finding herself." As the year goes on she try's to find her talent, deals with great disappointment, has to find a new best friend, and finds out why this year is so lucky for her. This book shows you how she deals with all this in a humorous way. Pacy will learn a lot during the year of the dog. Like when she meets Mei (her new best friend) I hope you enjoy this book.This book was powerful. It had a great way of showing girls it will be alright in the end. Pacy learns things that some people on their own would never be able to find out. So I think the is no reason for the book to change if you think it should. If you would ask me what this book was in 3 words it would be powerful, humorous, and effective.i had fun reading this book and think you will too.
—Ruby
yeah it is a pretty good book. hey shannon can you reccomend any good not to long books to read for an independent book report? and melissa and diana, if you end up reading this comment, do you know any either?
—Shannon
Grace Lin is funny, upbeat, and simple in her almost autobiography The Year of the Dog. As a Chinese-American (Taiwanese-American), Pacy (Grace) learns about herself in the lucky year of the dog! She learns that she is good at writing and aspires to write a book. There are stories within stories, when Pacy’s parents recount an earlier story (for example when Pacy’s mom was young), as well as Pacy’s own stories, written in the book as separate chapters. Pacy’s drawings are also hard to beat. Each drawing that illustrates a part of a story always seems to bring a smile to my face. Stories also tell about the day to day lives of Taiwanese-American families, especially details on what they ate and how they celebrated Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Chinese New Years! I grew up in Taiwan so this was actually a great learning experience for me to read about all the different, sometimes funny, customs (aka stories). Thoroughly enjoyable read, a must for Chinese American children of all ages!
—Tiffany
