a real life Ling and Ting

Shortly, after posting about my new project, I received this wonderful e-mail. It reminded me why creating children's books is the best job ever. And it makes me want to paint Ling and Ting in striped sailor dresses.

Dear Ms. Grace Lin,

Our names are Jennifer MeiDe and Rebekah MeiRui. We are ten years old and we are home schooled. We were born in Hefei China, but now we live in the United States. We are identical twins.

We have several books by you. The first book our Mom and Dad bought was Dim Sum For Everyone! The book we liked the most is The Year Of The Dog. Both of us can't wait to get The Year Of The Rat because our Dad and we were all born in that year.

We like your books and know that your new book will be Ling and Ting. This new book is about Chinese American twins, just like us. We look the same, but we have many differences. Jennifer loves to draw paper dolls of people. Rebekah loves to draw animals and draw background scenes.

We each write stories, but we write different kinds of stories. We are taking an online writing course at Northwestern University. Both of us like origami, just like in your other book, Lissy’s Friends , but we each make different kinds of origami figures. When we were babies, Rebekah wore a red ribbon and Jennifer wore a yellow ribbon so that they could tell us apart. Both of us still like those different colors as our favorites today.

We do the same things, but we do them in different ways. If you have any questions about Chinese American twins, please e-mail us.

Becky
and
Jenny

Rebekah(on right) and Jenny (on left)

the agony and the ecstasy

Between my store, my work (2 books at once!) and my life, I've been pretty overwhelmed. In an attempt to try to get a handle on things, I've been pulling all-nighters, or 5 AM-er's. While this has helped to some extent, last night I paid the price. In my half-awake stupor, I walked into a chair and...broke my little toe. It REALLY HURTS. And it is a disturbing shade of purple, too.

As I nursed my toe, my inner whining chorus of "Is this even worth it?" began. But just as it the song reached its crescendo, I received this lovely e-mail. Suddenly all the juggling, stress and fatigue doesn't seem so bad. Maybe even worth it... though perhaps not to my toe.

Dear Grace,
I recommended your book to some teachers in a book discussion group I lead, and sent Booklist's review of The Year of the Dog along with it. Here is a response I got from one of the members:

".....when I read Mary's note about the new book by Grace Lin, Year of the Dog, I was thrilled. What I have tried to do through LATTICE, Grace Lin has done with her book. But more than that, she loved the Carolyn Haywood books, "a series about a quintessentially American girl whose days centered around friends and school." Well, Carolyn Haywood was a close family friend of my family when I was growing up. For a number of years, I was the model for this quintessential American girl, Betsy.


When I read the books to my own kids in the 70's, I always asked them who was missing in these stories. Their African American and Chinese American friends were definitely missing! Interestingly, by the 1960's Carolyn even realized the problem and wrote some stories about African American children. Since she was always visiting and observing children in schools in order to make her books authentic, she visited some schools in Philadelphia with African American populations. At that time the schools were definitely segregated! I don't think that she portrayed the children accurately. They looked like white children with black skin but anyway, she tried!


I like to think that she'd be very, very pleased and honored to know that Grace Lin has taken on this important challenge of providing diversity of perspective and experience in children's literature. "

The woman who wrote the above, Sally M, is the founder of LATTICE (Linking All Types of Teachers to International Cross-Cultural Education). This is an organization in mid-Michigan that works to help teachers put a global perspective in their classrooms. (www.latticeworld.org ) We meet once a month to discuss issues pertaining to education and world events. I am the co-leader of a book discussion group that reads multicultural books and then invites in a person from that country to discuss it, and the accuracy of the book. Usually these are international students at Michigan State University, in our town. We have some great discussions!

I am a librarian, too, and love all your books. Thanks for all you do for children, and for us adults, too, with your beautiful books.

Sincerely,
Mary
East Lansing Public Library

fan mail

My agent just forwarded this to me. So cute! I wish I could write her back.

patience

Ah, I was so excited in my last post because I thought I had finished "Year of the Rat." But nothing like a good night's sleep and a day to ponder to realize my overstatement. Because upon rereading, I realized a major flaw and started gutting the poor thing. It'll be worth it, I know, but sometimes the "writer's journey" is frustrating; and--I don't care what other people say--quite unsatisfactory when you're on it.

But as I was grouching about revisions, in my inbox came this really sweet and strangely apropos e-mail (name withheld but exact typos & spelling included):

I love the novel "year of the dog"! I think it might have been one of the best books i have ever read this year! I am only 11 years old. I am chinese and part american(kind of like what's in your book). I was born in 1994 which is the year of the dog. I was wondering... If you can ever just ever maybe write back. Cause I love your books so much!!! Year of the dog is a story kind of like my life. I have not yet found some one just like me untill i read your book. I relized that sometimes when you want something you will just have to be patient no matter how bad you want it.

Thank you for your time
-----------
(as know'n as your #1 fan)

If she can be patient, I suppose I can too.

my bad

One of the unforeseen joys of writing novels is the fan mail. During my career as a picturebook author/illustrator, I have gotten an occasional flattering e-mail or letter, usually from parents. But, with Year of the Dog I've been hearing directly from the reader.

But I'm a horrible author! I have yet to respond to any of them. I keep meaning to, but somehow the pile remains on the desk. It was only when my editor asked me if I had any fan mail that she could use to pitch Year of the Rat (cross your fingers!) to pub committee, that I rifled though them. Oh the guilt! I'm sorry! I will reply, I will!

In the meantime here are some priceless excerpts (these are probably funnier if you've read the book):

"We really liked your book. There were so many magical moments. We like how you and Melody were best friends. You were always working together and were BFFs(Best Friends Forever)."

"...It was exciting to hear about Albert's red egg party. I bet Albert was very wealthy. I can't believe Albert got so many red eggs. Dinner sounded delicious. How much money was in the envelopes?"

"We really loved your book, The Year of the Dog. Please read our letter to find out why....Next, we liked the way you described the food. We don't usually like the food you talked about, but the flavors sounded so interesting. We could almost taste the details. Ha, ha, ha! Are you every going to write a book called The Year of the Pig?"

"...Pacy and I are the same and different. We were both born in America and our parent are from China. We each have smaller sibling. We both do not have many close friends. We are different because Pacy speaks English at home and I speak Chinese at home. I have a smaller brother and Pacy has a smaller sister. Albert was named after food. Are Ki-Ki, Pacy and Beatrice named after food? I am not named after food."