{"id":13738,"date":"2011-07-05T09:48:23","date_gmt":"2011-07-05T13:48:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bookdragon.si.edu\/?p=13738"},"modified":"2014-05-17T15:49:34","modified_gmt":"2014-05-17T19:49:34","slug":"the-clay-marble-by-minfong-ho","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/the-clay-marble-by-minfong-ho\/","title":{"rendered":"The Clay Marble by Minfong Ho"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2011\/07\/Clay-Marble.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-large wp-image-28092\" src=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2011\/07\/Clay-Marble.jpg\" alt=\"Clay Marble\" width=\"333\" height=\"500\" \/><\/a>Twelve-year-old Dara, her older brother, and their mother are the only ones left of their once-large family. Although the Vietnam War officially ended in 1975, neighboring Cambodia \u2013\u00a0decimated by Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge regime\u00a0\u2013\u00a0is still plagued with uncontrolled violence. Dara\u2019s diminished family flees their village to a refugee camp on the Thai-Cambodian border, where they find a near-instant connection with another splintered family.<\/p>\n<p>Dara is especially drawn to Jantu, one year older, whose remarkable talent for creating dolls, toys, whole imaginative worlds out of almost nothing \u2013 even muddy clay!\u00a0\u2013 binds the two girls tightly together. When both families are forced to flee yet again, Dara, Jantu, and her injured little brother become separated in the chaos. Fueled by the magic Dara believes Jantu has blown into a special clay marble, Dara tenaciously struggles to reunite both parts of her new family.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.members.authorsguild.net\/minfong\/index.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Minfong Ho<\/a>&#8216;s preface reveals her own personal journey guided by a magical clay marble, when she temporarily left college to volunteer with an international relief agency, setting up feeding programs for children in Thai-Cambodian border refugee camps. &#8220;I remember my first day at the Border,&#8221; she writes. &#8220;There are no words to describe the intensity of suffering I saw there. &#8230; I wanted to shut my eyes, turn around, and go back home.&#8221; But she didn&#8217;t.<\/p>\n<p>What kept Ho from leaving was &#8220;a ragged little girl,&#8221; who offered her &#8220;a small round ball of mud&#8221; \u00a0&#8230; complete with &#8220;a beautiful wide smile.&#8221; The laughter of the children that gathered around made Ho see that these refugees were &#8220;not the victims of war but its victors.&#8221; Although Ho doesn&#8217;t know what happened to the little girl\u00a0\u2013 &#8220;life could not have been easy for her&#8221;\u00a0\u2013 she can still &#8220;hope with all [her] heart that the little girl who gave [her] that first clay marble is safe and happy, home in Cambodia.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps the spirit of that smiling little girl lives in on Dara&#8217;s story, a lingering magic that gives her the strength and determination to continue to survive &#8230; and decades later, to thrive.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Readers<\/strong>: Middle Grade<\/p>\n<p><strong>Published<\/strong>: 1991<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Twelve-year-old Dara, her older brother, and their mother are the only ones left of their once-large family. Although the Vietnam War officially ended in 1975, neighboring Cambodia \u2013\u00a0decimated by Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge regime\u00a0\u2013\u00a0is still plagued with uncontrolled violence. Dara\u2019s diminished family flees&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28092,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[797,21,6,30,136],"tags":[6608,2102,75,10,11,36,12,2103,44,6609,45],"class_list":["post-13738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cambodian","category-chinese-american","category-fiction","category-middle-grade-readers","category-southeast-asian","tag-bookdragon","tag-clay-marble","tag-death","tag-family","tag-friendship","tag-girl-power","tag-girl-rising","tag-minfong-ho","tag-siblings","tag-southeast-asian","tag-war"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.14 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Clay Marble by Minfong Ho - BookDragon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/the-clay-marble-by-minfong-ho\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Clay Marble by Minfong Ho - BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Twelve-year-old Dara, her older brother, and their mother are the only ones left of their once-large family. Although the Vietnam War officially ended in 1975, neighboring Cambodia \u2013\u00a0decimated by Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge regime\u00a0\u2013\u00a0is still plagued with uncontrolled violence. Dara\u2019s diminished family flees...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/the-clay-marble-by-minfong-ho\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-07-05T13:48:23+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-05-17T19:49:34+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2011\/07\/Clay-Marble.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"333\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"500\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@SmithsonianAPA\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Clay Marble by Minfong Ho - BookDragon","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/the-clay-marble-by-minfong-ho\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Clay Marble by Minfong Ho - BookDragon","og_description":"Twelve-year-old Dara, her older brother, and their mother are the only ones left of their once-large family. Although the Vietnam War officially ended in 1975, neighboring Cambodia \u2013\u00a0decimated by Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge regime\u00a0\u2013\u00a0is still plagued with uncontrolled violence. Dara\u2019s diminished family flees...","og_url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/the-clay-marble-by-minfong-ho\/","og_site_name":"BookDragon","article_published_time":"2011-07-05T13:48:23+00:00","article_modified_time":"2014-05-17T19:49:34+00:00","og_image":[{"width":333,"height":500,"url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2011\/07\/Clay-Marble.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@SmithsonianAPA","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/the-clay-marble-by-minfong-ho\/","url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/the-clay-marble-by-minfong-ho\/","name":"The Clay Marble by Minfong Ho - BookDragon","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-07-05T13:48:23+00:00","dateModified":"2014-05-17T19:49:34+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#\/schema\/person\/a00f6dcfcb279c75f3f992ad2919d51d"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/the-clay-marble-by-minfong-ho\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/the-clay-marble-by-minfong-ho\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/the-clay-marble-by-minfong-ho\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Clay Marble by Minfong Ho"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#website","url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/","name":"BookDragon","description":"Books for the Diverse Reader","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#\/schema\/person\/a00f6dcfcb279c75f3f992ad2919d51d","name":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/79b5f08575e8962bd00388cd126d374b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/79b5f08575e8962bd00388cd126d374b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/twitter.com\/@SmithsonianAPA"],"url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/author\/riemert\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13738"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13738"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13738\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28105,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13738\/revisions\/28105"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}