One day in Ohio, a Chinese immigrant family excitedly pulls off to the side of a road to gather watercress in a muddy ditch. The daughter feels otherwise. She is greatly embarrassed, and her feelings carry over to dinner where she angrily refuses to eat the prepared watercress dish. However, her anger melts away when she learns more about her family's history with famine and through it the loss of her uncle. With a greater understanding and appreciation of her family's past, she decides to try the watercress she no longer despises.
While reading this book, I thought of many inference questions to ask students:
1. Why does the girl duck her head while she gathers watercress?
2. Why does the girl half hope the bag filled with watercress will rip?
3. The parents think free is good, while the girl thinks free is bad. Why is this?
4. At the end of the story, why did the girl decide to try the watercress?
This story brought back my own memories of my grandmother gathering acorns around our neighborhood to make Korean acorn jelly. I remember thinking it was strange that my grandmother did this, and I, too, felt wary about eating a dish made from food not bought at a grocery store or grown in a backyard. I wonder what memories might stir for students after reading this book.
