The Jade Dragon

Carolyn Marsden (author)
Virginia Shin-Mui Loh (author)

Candlewick Press, USA: 2008; 165pp

ISBN: 9780763640613

Genre: realistic fiction

Issues: adoption, culture, friendship, family, immigration

Ginny desperately hopes that the new girl in Yr1 will be her best friend. Surely Stephanie will want that too, as they are both Chinese?

Ginny has had to work hard to learn English and fit into her American school. She knows what it is like to feel different and new. Surely that will be something she can share with Stephanie?

Ginny's own loneliness makes her want to share everything with her new friend, even when she realises that Stephanie has been raised in America by her adoptive parents and so is Chinese only by birth. When Stephanie expects to take home a family treasure that has special meaning for Ginny, she feels as if she is being forced to choose between cultures.

This is a thought-provoking, sensitively written story that portrays very clearly the many challenges faced by immigrants in their new country. The novel reaches deeper even than that, giving voice to the unrecognised migrants - the children adopted at birth from other cultures. Stephanie represents the confusion of a child who is physically very different from her adoptive parents, yet, like Ginny, she is torn between two cultures in her desire to ‘fit in' and ‘belong'.

In 'The Jade Dragon', Marsden and Loh colour the often over-simplified palette of ‘the migrant experience' with subtle shades, recognising the complex motivations behind migration, the inner conflict felt by parents trying to maintain their child's grounding in their birth culture as well as reluctantly adapting to a new one.

This is an engaging novel with a strong narrative that encourages the reader to see beyond the ‘otherness' of the foreigner into their very human heart.

Delightful and worth sharing.