Watercress

Short and simple with lovely watercolor art. Watercress won the Caldecott Medal this year, too! Andrea Wang tells an autobiographical story of "harvesting" watercress out of a ditch on the side of the road in Ohio which her mom has spotted from their car. She is embarrassed and won't eat it at dinner, until her mom shares a painful story of growing up in China and losing her brother to starvation during the Great Famine (a disaster that I didn't know about until I read this book). So then 

I take a bite of the watercress and

it bites me back with its spicy, peppery taste.

It is delicate and 

slightly bitter,

like Mom's memories of home. 

 

Together,

we eat it

all

and make a 

new memory of 

watercress.