Recently home from Taiwan and a visit with my grandsons has got me thinking like a writer of books for children. What if? What if your biracial Taiwanese cousin comes to stay for a year? What if he is going to go to school with you? What if you are in 5th grade and you are already having trouble navigating school, social life… what if your sister and best friend and confidant is away on an exchange program and your other best friend is no help at all? Where is this kid going to sit in the school cafeteria when you don’t even know where you belong? What if….
You get the idea.
I spent years “stealing” from the lives of my 4 children dredging up material for my writing. After hearing a draft of First Grade King Number Two son told me, “You can’t steal my ideas like that!” Is it legal? I wondered. My children would told their friends, “Be careful what you say to my mom. It can and will appear in a book.” Well it has worked for me for years.
So why not “steal” from the grandkids?
Lunar New Year celebrations were filled with red envelopes and fireworks.
And back in Squirrel, Hill Pittsburgh our own Lunar New Year parade.
So what if you are biracial and come to Pittsburgh for a year of fifth grade…without your parents…to go to school with your cousin…in a school where they have lockdowns…where signs on the street say “Black Lives Matter?” Where you begin to try and figure out who you are. Is it “better” to be Taiwanese? Or American? What do you learn from your cousin? And what does she learn from you?
You get the idea, now I have to get to the writing… A New Year full of inspiration for the “pen” and what we writers do best…”stealing”.