BAO'S DOLL

A girl and her mother bridge a seemingly insurmountable gap.

Other girls have the things that Bao wants: beautiful, blond-haired dolls and mothers who joke and snuggle with their daughters. But Bao, a young Asian child with straight black hair in a bowl cut, has neither. There’s a palpable distance between her and Mama; on one spread, the two look in opposite directions as Mama explains, “When I was a little girl in Taiwan, we had nothing.” Bao has stopped listening; clearly the two don’t understand each other. Desperate, Bao takes matters into her own hands and shoplifts a coveted doll, but she’s caught immediately. A spread depicting a huge boulder between the two makes clear that the distance separating them has grown. But when Bao apologizes, Mama tells her about how she grew up in an orphanage, and Bao begins to understand her mother better. Mama shows Bao a box of items "filled with bittersweet memories," and as mother and daughter open up, they find common ground in sewing a new doll “from Mama’s memories and Bao’s hopes.” Lu’s illustrations are colorful and soft, with stylistically plump figures and airy textures. The red of Bao’s overalls and the blue of Mama’s dress dominate, with accents, colors, and sketchy grays bringing details into the fore- or background. Generational trauma looms large but is tempered by the optimistic ending.

An immigrant story that heals wounds present and past.