Status Updates From Watercress

Beautiful story and illustrations. The author’s note shared that this “story was both an apology and a love letter” to her Chinese parents who raised their family in the US.
The artist’s note indicated that he, too, put inspiration from his Chinese family into this book.

"I take a bite of the watercress and it bites me back with its spicy, peppery taste. It is delicate and slightly bitter, like Mom's memories of home."

"I look...to the watercress...and I am ashamed of being ashamed of my family." (Her family gathered it together earlier in the book).

"During the great famine,' [Mom] says, 'we ate anything we could find.'"

"Free is bad. Free is hand-me-down clothes."