The complexity of this situation is a step up from The Year of the Dog and is appropriate, considering Pacy is older in this book. When the other kids start calling him "Dumb-Way," Pacy doesn't join in but she also doesn't stop them, at first. Pacy doesn't like him at first and finds it difficult to welcome him into her life the way she did with Melody and her family, despite the fact that Pacy's mother has become fast friends with Dun-Wei's mother. Once Melody moves, Pacy struggles with being the only Asian girl at her school and also with the presence of Dun-Wei, the son of the family from China that has moved into Melody's house. As Pacy experiences typical American kid situations - she goes on field trips, worries about the talent show and copes with her loneliness and feelings of alienation after her best friend Melody moves to California, she also participates in family life which for her is rooted in her Chinese heritage and therefore not your typical American kid experience. As with The Year of the Dog, Lin seamlessly weaves traditional Chinese tales like "The Story of the Twelve Animals of the Chinese New Year or How the Rat Was First," and family stories about parents and grandparents growing up in Taiwan into her the story of Pacy and her family.
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