A Garden Called Home

A Garden Called Home contributes to a growing body of literature about Asian immigrants’ experiences and their challenges with adjusting to life in their adopted countries. In fictional and (auto)biographical works, representing these immigrants’ lives becomes a means for reflecting on their experiences’ significance, shaping their meaning, as well as empowering the Asian communities to which they belong by articulating their perspectives. In children’s literature, a number of authors explore these experiences from the viewpoints of young people which contribute to the range and complexity of immigrant stories that get circulated for public consumption.

The picture book A Garden Called Home is a delicately told and sensitive story that revolves around an evolving mother-daughter relationship through which it explores two complementary themes that pertain to the experience of immigration. It examines how the process of adapting to life in an unfamiliar country is not necessarily straightforward or easy but can be facilitated through an immigrant’s involvement with familiar activities and with the help of others. In addition, the book reveals the impact of immigration from the perspective of an immigrant’s descendants by considering what it means to discover one’s geographical roots and to visit a homeland that one has never known except through other peoples’ stories and recollections.

A Garden Called Home shares a few similarities with Mei Zihan’s New Year as both explore parent-daughter relationships within the context of Asian immigrants’ experiences in another country. Through their representation of immigrant experiences, both authors reflect on their impact for both the parent and child. However, whereas New Year is conveyed through the father’s perspective, A Garden Called HomeI told from the child’s perspective. This creates a different narrative dynamic as readers will receive their impressions of the girl’s mother through the filtered perspective of her child, rather than firsthand from the parent as in Zihan’s book. As a result, New Year incorporates a more significant level of emotional reflection and engagement as it explores the thoughts and feelings of a father who misses his daughter. Although the girl in A Garden Called Home may lack the psychological maturity and life experience to engage in that same type of self-conscious reflection, Lee’s choice of narrative perspective is intentional as it allows her to explore the younger generation’s perceptions of the older generation’s immigrant experiences. In addition, this perspective enhances the immediacy and intimacy of the girl’s thoughts for readers and facilitates their identification with her, particularly those who are similar in age to the girl.

A Garden Called Home intertwines two distinct narratives pertaining to immigrant experiences that revolve around a young girl and her mother respectively. As part of the narrative’s progression, an important contrast that the book represents is the differing understandings and experiences of “home” between the girl and her mother. For the young girl, “home” is where she currently lives while “home” for her mother is the homeland that she has left behind. Despite these differences, both characters have a shared love of nature that contributes to the development of a closer mother-daughter relationship. In weaving these narratives together, the book progresses toward a satisfying resolution that is literally and metaphorically expressed through their new garden which represents their building of a home where both belong. The act of planting a garden becomes a metaphor for their flourishing life as they are putting down roots collectively and building a home that incorporates elements familiar to both the girl and her mother, such as local plants as well as plants from her mother’s homeland.

The book’s beginning draws readers immediately into the story. It opens with the young girl who comments that winter is coming and that her mother does not like to go outdoors. When the two of them fly back to her mother’s homeland overseas, the girl observes a dramatic change in her mother’s demeanor as she appears more happy, relaxed, and youthful, but notices that her mother reverts to her unhappy self after returning home. After learning more about nature from her mother, the girl decides to learn more about nature back home so that she can reciprocate and show her mother that nature in another country can be wonderful as well. Through this interpersonal dynamic, the book provides a positive representation of mother-daughter relationships that mutually sustain, nourish, and inspire each other.

The publisher’s website states that this book is suitable for children between the ages of three to seven, but its themes will also make it accessible and enjoyable for older readers, including adults. With their life experience, these readers, particularly readers who have immigrated from other countries, could appreciate the book differently as they may identify more readily with the girl’s mother and better appreciate her feelings about missing her homeland. They may acquire a greater sense of psychological and emotional connection with the girl’s mother whereas younger readers may identify more readily with the young girl and her perceptions. However, their enjoyment of the book is not necessarily diminished by their lack of life experience. On a general level, children under the age of eight could still understand what it feels like to miss something that they value or feel an attachment with, whether this is a person, place, or object. However, the book may garner more appreciation from readers who can fathom the significance of moving to a new country or returning to a home that is far away.

One curious element in the book is why the author has chosen to keep both the mother’s homeland and her current place of residence unnamed. Although the summary on the book’s jacket states that the girl and her mother are visiting their family in Taiwan, the story does not actually mention this country. Instead, it states in a nonspecific manner, “Mama was born in a country where green trees grow from every hillside.” The text and illustrations do not include specific details that would definitively identify the mother’s country of origin, and so it could easily be China, Hong Kong, or Taiwan because of their cultural similarities. Similarly, the book does not say where the girl and her mother are living, although it is perhaps safe to assume that they are living somewhere in North America as the story cycles through the four seasons. Although the book’s lack of references to specific countries is not necessarily problematic, there does not seem to be a particular reason why these are not mentioned since specific locations could enhance the book’s impact. Nevertheless, this lack of specificity does endow the story with a more universal appeal since readers can use their imaginations to fill in the blanks and relate it to their own experiences and interpretations more readily.

Elaine Chen’s illustrations complement the narrative by evoking the characters’ psychological states while, at the same time, capturing the beauty of the natural world around them. The illustrations’ spatial arrangement of elements within a scene, choice of colours, and shades contribute to their effect. For example, the story establishes early on that the girl’s mother does not like winter in contrast to her daughter who marvels at it. The accompanying two-page illustration accentuates this contrast through its placement of the girl and her mother. In the upper-right corner of the page, the girl gazes out the window at the falling snow; in the foreground of the lower-left corner, the mother huddles on a chair and drinks hot tea, with her eyes averted from the weather outside. The expansiveness of the room emphasizes the distance between the girl and her mother, both physically and psychologically in relation to the weather outside. Other scenes provide a stark contrast to this early scene as the girl’s mother feels much more comfortable and at home when she returns to visit her homeland. She is happy to see her relatives and feels revitalized when hiking through nature.

The illustrations’ aesthetics also include pleasing thematic and visual contrasts that correspond with the narrative’s progression and character development and which contribute to the evolution of the girl’s and mother’s intertwining stories. During their trip back to her mother’s homeland, the girl’s mother leads her through the scenic natural environment, points out various aspects of nature, and explains their meaning and significance. The book’s lush and vivid colour palette captures the picturesque and peaceful expanse of nature that the girl and mother experience during their walks in the wilderness and mountains. In one particularly striking two-page illustration, the girl and mother are situated in the foreground, with the girl’s mouth gaping in awe as she looks towards the mountains that are bathed in the soft glow of pinkish and reddish colours from the pending sunset.
An interesting role reversal occurs after mother and daughter return home, the effect of which is enhanced visually through Chen’s accompanying illustrations. After learning as much as she can about the nature around her, the girl reciprocates by leading her mother through the wintry environment, sharing her knowledge, and showing her that nature can be beautiful here as well. The scene’s beauty is captured in another colourful two-page illustration that shows both of them looking beyond the ledge to the snow-covered forest and houses below. This parallels an earlier scene when the two of them are marveling at an expansive landscape and ancient volcano back in her mother’s homeland.

Similarly, the thematic and visual contrasts between the book’s first and last illustrations, which depict winter and spring respectively, subtly convey the positive evolution of Asian immigrants’ experiences. This seasonal transition evokes the cycle of life—birth, life, death, and rebirth—that parallels the evolution of these characters’ relationship with their current home and with each other. In its opening illustration, the young girl is indoors and looks out the window at the coming winter while her mother sits unhappily and apart from her on the other side of the room. In contrast, the final illustration shows the girl and her mother standing together outside in the springtime, waving to their neighbours and tending to their garden. These contrasts accentuate the growth that they have undergone individually and collectively as a family.

On a more general level, the book also offers a rejuvenating vision of nature that advocates implicitly for the preservation of nature for future generations. Both the girl and her mother take solace, enjoyment, and sustenance from nature in their own ways, but the book also reveals that nature can be something that people can share and enjoy together. Nature becomes a way for the characters to enhance their relationship with each other as well as with their current home.

The book’s language is suitable for its intended readers, but younger children could benefit from having the book read to them by an adult. Readers can also refer to the book’s glossary for definitions of unfamiliar words that are mentioned throughout the story. With the variety of themes that the book touches on, there is much potential for using it in the classroom. For example, teachers could initiate a more general discussion about what it means to move to a new place and the challenges that people might face in adapting to their new lives. Those who have had experience moving could reflect on what it was like, whereas those who have had friends or family move away could share their experiences as well. Alternatively, those who have visited their relations in other countries may also have some interesting perspectives to provide. With the book’s extensive representation of the natural environment, teachers could also approach this book from the perspective of how it represents nature and people’s relationship with it. Among younger readers, A Garden Called Home could provide a starting point for encouraging conversations about their favourite places in the natural environment while older readers may consider the various impacts of climate change, pollution, and other factors that may threaten the natural environment.

Based in Berlin, Jessica Lee is a British-Canadian-Taiwanese author and environmental historian, with a PhD in Environmental History and Aesthetics. A former Writer-in-Residence at Berlin’s Leibniz Institute for Freshwater Ecology, she also teaches creative writing at the University of Cambridge. A Garden Called Home is her first children’s book. More information about her writing is available at https://www.jessicajleewrites.com/.
Elaine Chen is a video game artist and children’s book illustrator who currently resides in Vancouver. Her passion for art developed at an early age from art classes that she attended in Hangzhou, China. After emigrating from China to Toronto, she subsequently earned her Bachelor of Animation from Sheridan College. She is interested in using traditional mediums such as watercolour and gouache in her art. Her official website is https://www.elainechen.ca/.