{"id":16687,"date":"2012-03-01T12:30:04","date_gmt":"2012-03-01T17:30:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bookdragon.si.edu\/?p=16687"},"modified":"2022-03-17T23:22:26","modified_gmt":"2022-03-18T03:22:26","slug":"the-garden-of-empress-cassia-by-gabrielle-wang","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/the-garden-of-empress-cassia-by-gabrielle-wang\/","title":{"rendered":"The Garden of Empress Cassia by Gabrielle Wang"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Garden<\/a>At school, 12-year-old Mimi Lu is better known as Smelly-Loo because “[h]er parents forced her to drink all sorts of smelly brews” \u2013 concocted by her herbalist doctor father \u2013 that lingered on her clothes, pigtails, skin, and even her breath. “[Y]ou are Chinese. Be proud of it,” her immigrant parents remind her, and yet she defiantly insists, “‘I’m Australian,\u00a0not\u00a0<\/em>Chinese.'”<\/p>\n

Gifted in art, Mimi receives special lessons from her favorite teacher, Miss O’Dell. But Dr. Lu forbids Mimi from “wasting” any more time and insists she concentrate on schoolwork. Mimi is devastated, until Miss O’Dell comes up with a compromise plan to work with Mimi during lunch, which also gives Mimi the perfect excuse to stay away from bullying Gemma and her “cool” group.<\/p>\n

Miss O’Dell gives Mimi a special set of beautiful Empress Cassia pastels with a mysterious warning, “No one<\/em>\u00a0is to use the colored pastels but you.” That Saturday, Mimi creates a magical sidewalk scene that invites viewers to experience something unusual … and healing. The pastels, Mimi quickly realizes, have otherworldly powers.<\/p>\n

As more and more people gather to experience the garden, Mimi’s mother decides that she’ll open a tea and dumpling shop right there on the sidewalk to provide refreshments. Mimi is suddenly famous in the little town, and her mother’s new venture becomes quite the happy, welcoming gathering place. But when mean girl Gemma figures out the power of the pastels, can Mimi stop her before Gemma’s wickedness changes the magic into something dark and dangerous …?<\/p>\n

In just under a hundred pages, third-generation Australian Chinese author\u00a0Gabrielle Wang<\/a> melds history and life lessons into an exciting adventure. She deftly inserts difficult events as vast as the Cultural Revolution (Mimi\u2019s mother\u2019s childhood), as personal as degrees of cultural assimilation among different generations of immigrants (Mimi and her parents), and as familiar as opposing sibling dynamics (Mimi\u2019s strict father and his ill younger brother). Wang realistically presents today\u2019s challenges at school \u2013 without easy fixes \u2013 from cliques to culture clashes to burgeoning boy\/girl dynamics. And through it all, she\u2019s got just the right balance to tell a really good, lasting story. That\u2019s a feat of welcome magic indeed.<\/p>\n

Readers<\/strong>: Middle Grade<\/p>\n

Published<\/strong>: 2011 (United States)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At school, 12-year-old Mimi Lu is better known as Smelly-Loo because “[h]er parents forced her to drink all sorts of smelly brews” \u2013 concocted by her herbalist doctor father \u2013 that lingered on her clothes, pigtails, skin, and even her breath. “[Y]ou are Chinese. Be…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27493,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[225,10205,67,6,30],"tags":[205,83,6608,74,10,11,1324,1325,39,79,35],"class_list":["post-16687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australian","category-australian-asian","category-chinese","category-fiction","category-middle-grade-readers","tag-art-architecture","tag-assimilation","tag-bookdragon","tag-bullying","tag-family","tag-friendship","tag-gabrielle-wang","tag-garden-of-empress-cassia","tag-parent-child-relationship","tag-school-challenges","tag-speculative-fantasy"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Garden of Empress Cassia by Gabrielle Wang - 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-garden-of-empress-cassia-by-gabrielle-wang\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Garden of Empress Cassia by Gabrielle Wang - BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"At school, 12-year-old Mimi Lu is better known as Smelly-Loo because “[h]er parents forced her to drink all sorts of smelly brews” \u2013 concocted by her herbalist doctor father \u2013 that lingered on her clothes, pigtails, skin, and even her breath. “[Y]ou are Chinese. Be...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/the-garden-of-empress-cassia-by-gabrielle-wang\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-03-01T17:30:04+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-03-18T03:22:26+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2012\/03\/Garden-of-Empress-Cassia.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"773\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1200\" \/>\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 Garden of Empress Cassia by Gabrielle Wang - 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-garden-of-empress-cassia-by-gabrielle-wang\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Garden of Empress Cassia by Gabrielle Wang - BookDragon","og_description":"At school, 12-year-old Mimi Lu is better known as Smelly-Loo because “[h]er parents forced her to drink all sorts of smelly brews” \u2013 concocted by her herbalist doctor father \u2013 that lingered on her clothes, pigtails, skin, and even her breath. “[Y]ou are Chinese. 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