Andrea Wang’s 2021 picture book Watercress (illustrated by Jason Chin) is a book about family, tradition, and what it means to belong (and feel out of place).
The story’s events are simple: a family is driving through rural Ohio when the parents spy watercress growing wild by the side of the road. They stop the car and use the paper bag and series they have in the truck to harvest watercress. They enlist the kids, including the narrating daughter, who doesn’t enjoy wading through the mud and water to get to the plant. As they harvest the plant, the narrator hopes no one driving by recognizes her.
Her brother teases her with the muddy (and snail-heavy) plants. As the bag fills, the girl half hopes, half fears it will break and the watercress will be lost. The bag holds, and they eventually load it in the car and drive home.
They have the watercress for dinner, but she wants none of it. Her mom praises it for being free, but the daughter doesn’t want free food or “hand-me-down clothes.” She’s unhappy with the whole situation and disconnected from it.
Until her mother gets out an old picture and starts telling stories about her family back in China, especially her brother. The narrator never met her uncle, and never heard stories about him. Until now. the mother tells about life during “the great famine,” and how they never had enough to eat.
She never says that the brother dies as a result, but the sadness and silence implies this, and there’s a shift in the girl. She now eats the watercress, appreciating its taste and making it part of a new family memory.
This is a sad book, and a serious one, but it is about growth and finding one’s place.
Jason Chin’s illustrations are gentle and gauzy, like memories.
This book won the 2022 Caldecott.
