Grace Lin Thesis

According to Grace Lin, “Books erase bias, they make the uncommon everyday, and the mundane exotic. A book makes all cultures universal" (www.gracelin.com). Grace Lin is an award winning author and illustrator. She has published many children’s books, early readers, and novels. Most of her books are about Asian Americans and their experiences. In her article, “A Touch of Grace,” Madeleine Blais discusses the life of Grace Lin and how she got her start (Blais, 2009). Lin was raised in New Hartford, New York. She lived in a two story white house with her father, mother, and two sisters. Her father was a kidney disease specialist and her mother was a stay at home mom. Just like any other child, Lin dreamed of growing up and having many different
While she was growing up, she had to face many difficulties regarding her heritage. According to Blais, “She and her family were the only Asians in her town, she struggled with the idea of assimiliation, seeing herself as part of the majority” (Blais, 2009). This changed when her school put on the production The Wizard of Oz. She was practicing for her audition on the playground when one little girl said, “You can’t be Dorothy. Dorothy’s not Chinese. Dorothy is American” (Blais, 2009). Lin says that she did not feel Chinese because she “…watched Little House on the Prairie, learned American history, and read books about girls named Betsy and boys named Billy (Blais, 2009). Grace Lin felt like she did not belong anywhere. She felt American but had black hair and slanted eyes, ate rice with chopsticks, and received red envelopes for her
It is an excellent choice for young children to read and has been awarded numerous awards. One of them including the Parent’s Guide 2001 Children’s Media Award (www.gracelin.com). In this book, a family goes to a dim sum restaurant. They all pick out their favorite food from a trolley that has dumplings, cakes, buns, and tarts, and share it with each other. On the cover and through out the book, there are swirls everyone in the background. Lin likes to add swirls to her illustrations as a tribute to Van Gogh’s Starry Night, because it is her favorite painting. In a classroom, this book would be a great way to introduce students to Chinese culture and customs. It would be fun to bring in various dim sum dishes from a local Chinese restaurant and let students taste the dishes and write about which one if their favorite. Depending on the age of the students, it would be interesting to have the students research their local community and discover what kind of nationalities and cultures