When I was six years old my parents and I, along with my aunt, some friends, and our pets, left the only home I had ever known. A civil war had been raging in the country where I was born and we had no choice but to leave. We left behind our house, most of what we owned, many of our friends, and the graves of loved ones who had been killed in the conflict. Even now, all these years later, the clouds of my refugee and immigrant memories still drift across my sky once in a while.
The book I am reviewing today won the prestigious Caldecott Award on January the twenty-fourth of this year. It is a powerful and beautifully illustrated story about a child whose parents had to leave their homeland when their lives there became unbearable. She feels no connection with her parents' homeland, and she does not know their story until the day when the past reaches into the present.
Watercress
Andrea Wang
Illustrated by Jason Chin
Picture Book
For ages 5 and up
Holiday House, 2021, 978-0823446247
One day an old, faded car containing a girl and her family is driving down a dirt road that is lined with rows of corn. Between the edge of the road and the corn fields there is a ditch full of water. The mother has “eyes as sharp as the tip of a dragon’s claw,” and she sees something in the ditch. She calls out and her husband slams on the brakes.
Wild watercress is growing in the ditch and soon the girl, her brother, and their parents are in the ditch. With rolled up trousers and bare feet they walk through the cold water, mud squishing between their toes, cutting the watercress. When a car drives by the girl hides her face, ashamed of what they are doing. American people would never gather watercress in a ditch, but the girl’s parents were born in China, and for them being able to collect watercress to eat connects them to their homeland and their past.
Back at home the girl refuses to eat the watercress that her mother serves with dinner. As far as she is concerned eating free food is just as shameful as wearing hand-me-down clothes, and taking furniture that other people have thrown away on the side of the road.
Then the girl’s mother brings out a photograph to show her daughter. It is portrait of the mother with her parents and her little brother. She begins to tell the story of her family, a story that is threaded with pained and loss.
All over there world people leave their homelands to start new lives elsewhere, driven away by war, famine, persecution, or a natural disaster. This story is based on an event that took place in the author’s life. When she was a child her Chinese immigrant parents collected watercress from a roadside ditch, and their behavior only reinforced for her that she was different. Being different can be hard for children, and they often fervently wish that they could be like everyone else and fit in.
With great sensitivity and gentle touches of emotion, the author tells a story that is dear to her heart. It is a story that will resonate with anyone who has felt as if they don’t belong, and it is also a tender tribute to all those families who have had to start over in a new place or foreign land.
Jason Chin’s art perfectly complements Andrea’s lyrical text. His watercolors bring together the traditions of western and Chinese art, beautifully connecting the past with the present.
