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Guest Post: Our Wayward Fate Author Gloria Chao on the Mid-Autumn Festival
Today on the B&N Teen Blog, we’re celebrating the Mid-Autumn Festival, celebrated in many Asian countries, with a guest post by Gloria Chao, author of the stellar American Panda and the upcoming Our Wayward Fate. She tells us about how her family celebrated the festival as a child, and has some book recs if you want to learn more!
Happy Mid-Autumn Festival! 中秋節快樂!
Mid-Autumn Festival is a widely celebrated holiday, especially in Asian countries, falling on the 15th day of the 8th month of the lunar calendar when there is a full moon. I have fond childhood memories celebrating in Chinese School by eating mooncakes (a flaky pastry filled with sweet-bean or lotus-seed paste), making paper lanterns, and answering lantern riddles (aka dēng mí: paper lanterns with riddles written on them). Some people will also write wishes on sky lanterns and send them up in the air like little hot air balloons.
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This last tradition inspired a scene in my novel Our Wayward Fate (coming out October 15, 2019), about a Taiwanese-American teen outcast who is swept up in a whirlwind romance and down a rabbit hole of dark family secrets when another Taiwanese family moves to her small, predominantly white midwestern town. In this story, a lantern festival serves as a bonding moment between the two Taiwanese characters and their white classmates.
Here are my recommended books to read for Mid-Autumn Festival! Read on to also learn more about this holiday.
YA Novels:
Moon worshipping is a big part of Mid-Autumn Festival, and you can’t worship Cháng’é (the moon goddess) without a nod to her companion rabbit, who makes the elixir of life. Growing up, my mother would point out how the moon’s surface resembles the image of a rabbit pounding on a mortar and pestle, and to this day, it’s what I see when I look at the moon. So, in honor of Moon Rabbit, I have to do a tongue-in-cheek recommendation of Watership Down by Richard Adams, which is a story following a group of rabbits.
This holiday is also based on The Legend of the Mooncake. In the 13th century, the Chinese rose up against Mongol rule by coordinating an attack through slips of paper baked into mooncakes, which the Mongols didn’t eat. To commemorate this piece of history, I recommend reading Internment by Samira Ahmed, which imagines a near-future world with a brave revolution of its own.
One of the most important parts of the Mid-Autumn Festival is gathering with family. Generations ago, this was more easily done, but nowadays many families have immigrated, and holiday celebrations where the entire family gathers can be difficult. As a diaspora interpretation of this, I will recommend two books that have protagonists journeying to another country (Japan and Taiwan, respectively, where one or more of the character’s parents are from) to meet their grandparents for the first time: I Love You So Mochi by Sarah Kuhn and The Astonishing Color of After by Emily X. R. Pan.
This holiday is rooted in the legend of Cháng’é, who drank the elixir of life and became the goddess of the moon. To feel more of the enchantment and magic of Chinese mythology, dive into the sweeping Chinese-inspired fantasies Spin the Dawn by Elizabeth Lim and Descendent of the Crane by Joan He. And for a contemporary fantasy that brings Korean mythology to life, I recommend Kat Cho’s immersive Wicked Fox.
Graphic Novels:
The Mid-Autumn Festival revolves around giving thanks to the appropriate gods for the harvest, and Pilu of the Woods by Mai K. Nguyen is a beautifully written and illustrated depiction of Pilu connecting with nature and a tree spirit to confront her inner emotions.
Since mooncakes are such an integral part of Mid-Autumn Festival, this list wouldn’t be complete without Mooncakes by Suzanne Walker and Wendy Xu (out October 15, 2019). This graphic novel, like Cháng’é’s legend, includes magic and paranormal elements.
Happy Mid-Autumn Festival and Happy Reading!
GLORIA CHAO is the author of American Panda and Our Wayward Fate. She is an MIT grad turned dentist turned writer. She currently lives in Chicago with her ever-supportive husband. Visit her online and follow her on Twitter and Instagram @gloriacchao.