AH MA'S HOME

While strolling through a park, a child learns about a beloved grandparent’s experiences growing up in China.

On a lovely fall day, a black-haired youngster (who narrates) and white-haired grandmother stroll through a park amid red and gold trees, with ducks and Canada geese all around. Ah Ma especially likes watching the geese; there were no birds like this in the village where she grew up. There was no snow, either. What did the village have? Ah Ma recalls a river of cold, clear water and the rainbow-colored birds that would talk if you fed them tofu from your hands. Ah Ma also remembers homes with mud walls where birds and lizards would nest in the holes (Ah Ma swears she once even saw a “very, very tiny dragon”). Each of her memories is accompanied by a muted illustration from Hong depicting life in another place and time, featuring a young Ah Ma. Past and present are interspersed and intertwined, as on the cover art (which places young Ah Ma and the protagonist in the same scene), conveying the similarities and differences of two childhoods. “Don’t you miss it?” the young narrator asks. Ah Ma replies that sometimes she does miss the differences, but “home is also still the same,” because it is with the people she loves.

Shines a multigenerational light on the bittersweet joys of the immigrant experience.