A Very Sweet Year: The Year of the Dog by Grace Lin

Grace Lin's semi-autobiographical novel The Year of the Dog introduces us to a young Taiwanese-American girl who is just becoming aware of who she is--Pacy to her foreign-born parents at home, Grace to her classmates at school.

But despite her dual identity, Grace begins the year content within her family and in the wider world of her elementary school. The novel opens with the wonderfully sensual descriptions of a Chinese New Year feast in preparation as Grace asks what it means for the new year to be "The Year of the Dog."

"They say the Year of the Dog is the year for friends and family. But there's more to it than that. The Year of the Dog is also for thinking. Since dogs are also honest and sincere, it's a good year to find yourself," Mom said.

"Find myself? But I'm not lost," little sister Ki-Ki said.

We all laughed and Mom tried to explain.

"No," she said. "Finding yourself means deciding what your values are, what you want to do--that kind of thing."

And Grace takes the meaning of the year to heart. After a funny mix-up by the lunchroom lady, who thinks Grace is the new girl at school, she meets Melody, the only other Asian girl in her school and the two compare their common Taiwanese heritage and the differences between their mothers. Grace's mom makes all the Taiwanese dishes the traditional way, while Melody's mom sticks to strictly low-fat versions. Contrarily, Melody has learned to speak Chinese at home, but Grace's family speaks mostly English.

The girls become best friends, cooperating on a science project and sleeping over at each other's houses. Grace has her first experience with a sort of benevolent prejudice when friend Becky points out that Grace can't be Dorothy in the class play of The Wizard of Oz because "Dorothy isn't Chinese." Grace's comfortable world seems to stop, and she decides not to try out for the part and worries if she can even play a Chinese munchkin.

"How come Chinese people are never important?" she asks Melody. "You never see a Chinese person in the movies or in a play or in a book. No one Chinese is important."

When Melody insists on searching the library and comes up with The Five Chinese Brothers, to refute her argument, Grace insists that she wants a real Chinese person book, and decides she'll have to write one herself for the national children's book contest.

However, when Grace goes with Melody to the Taiwanese-American Conference, she learns that bias is not limited to white Americans when a girl taunts her because she doesn't speak and write Taiwanese.

"You're a Twinkie! My brother said Chinese people who are Americanized are Twinkies. Yellow on the outside, but white on the inside!" she says.

As the Year of the Dog passes, Grace talks openly with her mother and with her teachers about her feelings, and her mother's stories of her own childhood and her teacher's sensible advice help her to see herself as a unique individual, Chinese and American, Pacy and Grace, one complete person. When her book wins a national prize, Grace has a coming-of-age realization. "I found myself. I'm going to make books when I grow up," she tells everyone.

Lin's slim, simply written story of a fourth grader who begins working out her place in the world is, like the fictional Grace's favorite, B Is for Betsy, a comforting story of the mistakes and successes which mark the steps any child takes in growing up. Seen from the special outlook of a second-generation Asian immigrant child, it is a recommended read for all children. The Year of the Dog is a 2007 ALA Notable Book.