Embarrassed about gathering watercress from a roadside ditch, a girl learns to appreciate her Chinese heritage after learning why the plant is so important to her parents.
Driving through Ohio in an old Pontiac, a young girl's parents stop suddenly when they spot something growing in a ditch by the side of the road... watercress! With an old paper bag and some rusty scissors, the whole family wades into the muck to collect as much of the muddy, snail- covered plant as they can. At first, it's embarrassing. Why can't her family get food at the grocery store? But when her mother shares the story of her family's life in China, the girl learns to appreciate the fresh food they foraged. Together, they make a new memory of watercress in this tender story inspired by the author's childhood memories and illustrated by Caldecott Honor artist Jason Chin. - Jacket flap.
This story is about the power of memory. Not just the beautiful memories, like the ones my mother and father had about eating watercress in China, but also the difficult ones, the memories that are sometimes too painful to share. It starts with my own distressing memory of being made to pick watercress that was growing wild by the side of the road. As the child of Chinese immigrants, growing up in a small, mostly white town in Ohio, I was very aware of how different my family and I were from everyone else. It's hard to feel like you don't belong, and collecting food from a muddy roadside ditch just made that bad feeling more intense for me -- something my very practical parents didn't understand. When I was young, my parents didn't talk about their memories of China, of growing up poor, losing siblings, and surviving war. I don't blame them -- these are difficult topics to discuss with children. But it's important, too, for children to understand their family history. Perhaps if I had known about the hardships they had faced, I would have been more compassionate as a child. Maybe I would have felt more empathy and less anger. More pride in my heritage and less shame. Memories have the power to inform, to inspire, and to heal. This story is both an apology and a love letter to my parents. It's also an encouragement to all children who feel different and to families with difficult pasts -- share your memories. Tell your stories. They are essential. - A note from the author.