The Most Beautiful Thing 2019050935, 2019050936, 9781541561915, 9781541599376

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W

hen young Kalia wants ice cream, she has to make do with ice cubes from the freezer. When she wants a new dress for the first day of school, her mother gives her a few coins to spend on candy at the corner store. And when she wants meat for dinner, she must settle for a piece of bone that flavors the family’s soup. Finally, Kalia becomes tired of longing for what she cannot have. When she asks for braces to straighten her crooked teeth, which her family cannot afford, it is her grandmother who helps her see what is truly beautiful. Drawn from author Kao Kalia Yang’s childhood experiences as a Hmong refugee, this moving picture book portrays a family with little money—and a great deal of love. Weaving together Kalia’s story with that of her beloved grandmother, the book moves from the jungles of Laos to the family’s early years in the United States. Stunning illustrations from Vietnamese illustrator Khoa Le bring this intergenerational tale to life.

Ages 5–9 Reinforced binding

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For the everlasting beauty of a grandmother’s smile. For Youa Lee, the grandma in this book, and Joua Thao, the grandma I never got to meet but whose love shines through my mother. —K.K.Y. For Grandma, who forgot everything but will never be forgotten —K.L.

Chue is pronounced CHEW. It means bell and can be a name for a girl or a boy. Dawb is pronounced DUH, with a rising tone. It means white and can be a name for a girl or a boy. Hmong is pronounced MOHNG. The word refers to a people, an ethnic minority, from Southeast Asia. Starting in 1975, many Hmong families came to the United States as refugees of war. Lei is pronounced LAY. It is a name for a girl or a boy. me naib is pronounced MEE NYE with a rising tone at the end. It is a term of endearment for a child, similar to “my dear” or “my darling.” phim nyu vais is pronounced PEE NYU VYE. The word refers to an evil spirit that causes sickness and death. pog ntxoog is pronounced BAH TXHONG. The word refers to a female jungle spirit who was once human and is the size of a child.

Text copyright © 2020 by Kao Kalia Yang Illustrations copyright © 2020 by Khoa Le All rights reserved. International copyright secured. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise— without the prior written permission of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc., except for the inclusion of brief quotations in an acknowledged review. Carolrhoda Books® An imprint of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc. 241 First Avenue North Minneapolis, MN 55401 USA For reading levels and more information, look up this title at www.lernerbooks.com. Designed by Emily Harris. Main body text set in Horley Old Style MT Std Semibold. Typeface provided by Monotype Typography. The illustrations in this book were created with mixed media and Photoshop. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Yang, Kao Kalia, 1980– author. | Le, Khoa, 1982– illustrator. Title: The most beautiful thing / Kao Kalia Yang ; illustrated by Khoa Le. Description: Minneapolis : Carolrhoda Books®, 2020. | Audience: Ages 5–9 | Audience: Grades 2–3 | Summary: “Drawn from Kao Kalia Yang’s childhood experiences as a Hmong refugee, this heartfelt picture book offers a window into the life of a family with little money and a great deal of love”— Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2019050935 (print) | LCCN 2019050936 (ebook) | ISBN 9781541561915 (library binding) | ISBN 9781541599376 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Immigrant families—United States—Juvenile literature. | Grandparent and child—United States— Juvenile literature. Classification: LCC JV6475 .Y36 2020 (print) | LCC JV6475 (ebook) | DDC 305.8959/72073—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019050935 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019050936 Manufactured in the United States of America 1-46396-47486-1/22/2020

Kao Kalia Yang Illustrated by Khoa Le t Carolrhoda Books • Minneapolis

My grandmother is so old, no one knows how old she is. Not me, not my big sister Dawb, not our older cousin Lei. My father waits patiently when we try to guess her age. He is my grandma’s ninth and youngest child, and even he does not know how old she is.

We know that my grandma was born on the other side of the world, across a wide ocean. My grandma came from a time and a place where creatures lurked in the jungles waiting to chase unwary children. She told us that she once looked into the gleaming eyes of a tiger and felt its hot breath on her face.

By the time I was born, my grandmother already had an old woman’s face. Her skin was soft but dry like paper and in her mouth was a single tooth. Grandma said, “It is the only thing standing strong in my mouth, this final tooth that my mother and father gave me.”

I asked to see a picture of her parents. She said, “Me naib, they lived in a time long before the Hmong learned of such things as photographs.” She pointed to her heart, “The only picture I have of them is here.”

The luckiest of the grandchildren got to help take care of Grandma. Lei got to wash Grandma’s clothes by hand at the bathroom sink with sweet-smelling pink soap. Dawb got to wash Grandma’s soft brown back in the bathtub with a soapy cloth.

And me? I got to clip her fingernails and toenails while Grandma sat on her favorite stool in the light from the window.

I can still feel the roughness of Grandma’s heels in my hand, the thickness of her toenails in between my fingers. I can see the bottoms of her feet, thick and brown and broken, deep cracks filled with dirt from long ago and far away.

Grandma told me that her mother and father died when she was a little girl. Grandma was just a child herself, but she had to take care of her two younger brothers and baby sister. I looked up at my grandma from the place where I sat at her feet, and I asked her, “How did you get food for them?”

Grandma said, “I didn’t find enough food. We lived always with hunger eating us on the inside.” All my life with her, even with just her one tooth, Grandma never said no when we offered her something to eat.

The ice cream truck was singing its song from down the street. I looked underneath the couch for quarters. There were none. So I got ice cubes from the freezer.

I offered one to Grandma in my red plastic cup. She smiled at me.

When I wanted a new dress to wear on the first day of third grade, my mother said she did not have enough money. She found some nickels and a dime in her purse and offered them to me.

I bought hard peppermint candies from the neighborhood grocery at the corner of our block. When I got home, I offered one to Grandma on the palm of my hand. She smiled at me.

At the round table with its shaky legs, I used my spoon to mix and mix in the center soup bowl we all shared. There were no pieces of meat, only bones, and soft greens. My father said, “The price of meat is too expensive at the market, me naib.”

I found a thick chunk of bone and offered it to Grandma on my spoon. She smiled at me.

We had plenty of meat only when we celebrated Hmong New Year with our aunts, uncles, and cousins. The old table was heavy with whole, boiled chickens, more than our family could ever eat. After dinner, our bellies full, my cousins and I sat on the carpet around Grandma as she told us stories. She always began, “It was a long time ago and I was just a girl . . .”

As we listened, our eyes grew round. Grandma twisted her fingers, one over the other, to show us what the hands of poj ntxoog, jungle spirits the size of children, looked like. She taught us how to listen for the cries of the fearsome phim nyu vais by holding our breath until our hearts pounded in our ears. We were always sad when Aunt Chue called, “Time for the children to help clean up!”

On a cold day, when the snow blew onto the windowpanes and the light was dim, I asked Grandma about the dirt in her feet. She told me she didn’t have shoes after her mother and father died. She went shoeless to the mountains to tend to the family field. She ventured into the jungle to look for wild roots, bamboo shoots, and edible mushrooms. And one day, she was chased by a tiger—as she fled, her bare feet broke open on the fallen branches, and she still ran, blood and dirt mixing into clay with each step.

I squeezed her feet in my arms and pulled them close to my heart, a hug for the hard road she’s walked to get to me.

Each year, cutting my grandma’s nails went faster because I grew stronger and bigger and more able. Each year, Grandma’s feet felt smaller and smaller in my hands and my lap. Her stories, too, slowed with the passing years. The pauses between her words grew long.

Sometimes, as Grandma was looking for the words she’d lost to the years, I grew distracted from my task, looking at the toys on the floor that needed to be picked up, the unfinished schoolwork, the younger children who needed to be bathed.

Her deep, even breathing would call me back to the moment—only to find her eyes closed in sleep, one hand braced against the window to cradle her head.

I grew unhappy with our life. I was tired of getting ice cubes from the freezer when I wanted ice cream. I was tired of never getting the new dress for that first day of school. I was tired of gnawing on the bone in the soup when I wanted meat for myself and my grandma.

One evening, I studied my face in the bathroom mirror, wishing my teeth were straight. I came out of the bathroom and said, “Mom and Dad, I want braces. Can I have them?”

My mother looked up from nursing my baby sister and said, “We don’t have any money. Maybe next year?” My father looked up from my toddler sister he was bouncing on his legs and said, “I wish we could get you braces, me naib, but we can’t right now.”

My grandmother looked up from her special stool by the big window. “Kalia,” she said. “Look at me.” I turned to her in the glow of early evening. The sun was low in the sky, and its golden light fell on her face.

Grandma asked, “Is my smile not beautiful?” In that moment, I could see all the times my grandmother had smiled at me. I could taste the cold ice cubes that melted summer’s heat from our tongues, the sweetness of the hard peppermint candies, and the deep flavors of the bone broth in the bowls of boiled greens.

Even now, I can still see my grandma’s single tooth, white against the shadows, standing tall in her open mouth.

Her smile was the most beautiful thing.

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Kao Kalia Yang is a Hmong American writer and author of the picture books A Map into the World and The Shared Room as well as a number of books for adults, including The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir and The Song Poet. Much of Yang’s work is inspired by the people in her life whose stories have never been part of the bookshelves of a bigger world. She lives in Minnesota with her husband, her daughter, and twin sons. Visit her online at www.kaokaliayang.com. Khoa Le has illustrated picture books published in a number of different countries. She is also an author and a painter. Le has a passion for travel, an eagerness to learn about different cultures, and a desire to discover the beauty of the world. She lives in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam, with her cats. Jacket illustrations © 2020 by Khoa Le

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