Yes, Grace, that would be so excellent! Grace landed at the Rhode Island School of Design studying illustration, while I attended UC Berkeley. One day when we’re all grown up, you’ll see in a bookstore: ‘Illustrated by Grace P. In one letter, Grace wrote about applying to art school and said, “I’m going to illustrate children’s books, y’know. As described in one of our favorite books, Anne of Green Gables, we were kindred spirits.Īfter my family moved away to California three years later (events captured in The Year of the Rat), we kept in touch by writing letters back and forth. We soon became best friends, bonding over our mutual love of reading. I felt painfully shy as a child, and I think that often came across as being standoffish, but I remember Grace as relentlessly cheerful and friendly. Mutual friends introduced us to Grace’s family, who are also Taiwanese American. We had just moved to the small town of New Hartford, New York. In real life, Grace and I met at my family’s house when her family came to visit. And, while a lunch lady’s microaggression did happen, it wasn’t until a few years after we met.
As some of you may know, Melody is a character based on me, and Grace and I really did meet as children - I was the new girl. In Grace Lin’s first novel, the semiautobiographical The Year of the Dog, Pacy first meets the new girl, Melody, in the school cafeteria after the lunch lady confuses them (they’re the only two Asian girls in school). "Book Friends Forever": Alvina and Grace as kids (left) and as roommates (right).
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