Pacy’s family is Taiwanese-American, but she has lived all her life in New Hartford, New York. DUMPLING DAYS is about her first trip to Taiwan to visit relatives and learn more about the country her parents once called home. In New York, Pacy is the only Asian girl in her class. In Taiwan, she looks like everyone else but cannot speak their language. In New York, Pacy is skilled at drawing, but her Taiwanese classes in traditional Chinese painting make her feel like she has lost her art talent. Pacy finds herself worrying that what the kids said at the Taiwanese-American convention might be true. They called her a Twinkie (“yellow on the outside, but white on the inside”), telling her she had become Americanized and lost her culture. Can she be an American when she doesn’t look like everyone else in her school? Can she be Taiwanese when she doesn’t even speak the language?

This is Grace Lin’s third book of stories --- joining YEAR OF THE DOG and YEAR OF THE RAT --- about Pacy and her family. Though best read together, each book easily works as a stand-alone title. The series is loosely based on Lin’s childhood experiences growing up Taiwanese-American. DUMPLING DAYS takes many of its stories from her own life, but weaves in contemporary sights and details to connect with young readers. Written with specificity and detail about ordinary things --- like trying chicken feet for the first time --- the book captures the experience of traveling to a new culture, while also tracing Pacy’s larger journey to better understand herself and her family.

One of the things I liked most about DUMPLING DAYS is the smaller stories nested in the larger narrative. Sometimes they are from Chinese folklore, but just as often, they are family stories that give Pacy (and the reader) a way to relate to her culture and relatives, and help her to feel like she belongs. Most of these stories are humorous and lighthearted, but eventually Lin must tell the more serious story about why Pacy’s parents left Taiwan to come to the United States.

“When we left, things weren’t good in Taiwan,” says Pacy’s mother. “There was martial law then…. [That’s] when the government is scared and so mistrustful that they are very strict and suspicious with the people…. Sometimes they are so strict that they are cruel. We wanted to get away from that.”

Then Pacy’s mother tells her about how Pacy’s uncle was arrested and disappeared for two years. Even after he was returned and his name cleared of any wrongdoing, people were afraid to be associated with a family that had fallen under suspicion. So when Pacy’s father had an opportunity to work in the United States, he took it. This was the best chance he had to raise his family in a place where they would not have to be afraid, even though it would mean leaving behind people and places he loved.

Illustrated with simple spot illustrations to show the different things Pacy encounters, DUMPLING DAYS has that sense of real life that exists in some of the very best books for children. The innocent adventures of Pacy and her sisters reminded me a great deal of Maud Hart Lovelace’s Betsy-Tacy books about best friends growing up in turn-of-the-century Minnesota. Even though their lives are different, it had the same sense of immediate sensory input, including vivid descriptions of sounds, sights and tastes. It turns out that the Betsy-Tacy books, along with Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House series, are some of the author’s inspirations. She wanted readers to have a similar experience reading the books about Pacy that she had when reading about Deep Valley or Plum Creek.

People often use the word “timeless” in their description of these kinds of stories. I suppose they mean it’s the type of story that could appeal to anyone, anywhere. But what makes them appeal to me --- and why I believe Grace Lin’s books, including DUMPLING DAYS, are as good as any of these classic children’s tales --- is that they are time-full. They are full of a specific time and place. They make it easy to imagine what it might be like to grow up as a part of a Taiwanese-American family or visit Taiwan. They are like little time capsules that reach across time and space and make what is specific immediate to one person accessible and available to all readers.

At the beginning of DUMPLING DAYS, Pacy’s dad says, “Traveling is always important --- it opens your mind. You take something with you, you leave something behind, and you are forever changed. That is a good trip.” That is also the description of a good book.