The Gold-Threaded Dress

by Carolyn Marsden Narrated by Amy Rubinate

Overview

In Thailand, Oy was called by her own name, but in her first school in America, the teacher renames her Olivia. Everything else is different too. The other girls leave her out of their games, and a boy named Frankie teases her. Then Liliandra, a popular girl in the class, sees a photo of Oy in her Thai dancing dress and offers to let Oy into her club if she brings the dress to school. Oy knows that would be a betrayal of her family's traditions, but she wants so much to belong. At home, fingering the pink silk of her dress, Oy makes a decision.

“Marsden hits the issues of this age group squarely and truthfully.” -Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Marsden writes with keen observation and finesse about the social dynamics of the classroom and with simplicity reveals the layers of emotion experienced by Oy.” -Booklist (starred review)

“A simple story about the painstaking effort of trying to fit in.” -School Library Journal

Editorial Reviews

Kirkus Reviews

Oy silently cries out in frustration that her teacher and classmates do not accept her as Thai; her teacher issues her an "easier-to-remember" English name; and her fourth-grade classmates pull their round eyes into slits and call her "Chinita," little Chinese. Revealing the challenges young immigrants face in a mixed-race school environment, Oy feels torn between the respect she feels for her Thai culture and the acceptance she wants from her American culture. When she draws her family picture, their eyes are as round as those of the boy who teases her most, further exemplifying her will to fit in. She typifies the average fourth-grader's yearning in a way that each reader will recognize or remember. Acceptance into a campus girl's club is contingent upon allowing chubby club members to wear her petite, gold-threaded dress. The slow plot builds to climactic action as school authorities disband and discipline the whole club, whose members are discovered lined up in their underwear waiting for a turn to try on, inadvertently soil, and tear the delicate garment, symbolic of Oy's tender spirit. In an emotional buildup, Oy is forced to face her choices and reconsider her goals. Marsden, in her debut, draws on her own experience as she describes a loving family guiding their daughter in a difficult time. Those who read this short, character-driven story will remember the parallels between their personal experience and the forceful message, concluding that being kinder to new immigrants builds delightful friendships and provides interesting insights into rich cultures. (Fiction. 8-10)

JULY 2011 - AudioFile

Amy Rubinate’s sweet, welcoming voice recounts the struggles of Oy, a Thai-American fourth-grader. Oy must decide if she should share her pink silk dress in order to please clique leader Liliandra. Rubinate’s style is soft and controlled. She creates subtly different voices, with slight changes in timbre for the male characters. However, the choice to avoid accents in a story that features a Thai protagonist in a Mexican-American school district is not ideal. It creates a uniform, accessible recording but one that makes no attempt to be authentic. Also, Rubinate’s consonants are not as crisp as they should be. While this gentle reading shares a meaningful message of cultural assimilation, it could be improved with greater attention to detail. C.A. © AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID:	2940172531651
Publisher:	Brilliance Audio
Publication date:	06/14/2011
Edition description:	Unabridged
Age Range:	5 - 8 Years

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER ONE

"Chinese, Japanese." Frankie pulled at the edges of his eyes so they looked like slits. "Americanese!" He let his eyes spring back to normal.

"I am not Chinese!" Oy wanted to say. But she just shook her head slightly. She put her hands over the picture she'd been drawing.
Miss Elsa had her back turned, helping other children clean out the hamster cage.

Liliandra was holding the straw-colored hamster, Butterscotch. She transferred him from one bent elbow to the other as he tried to scratch her with his tiny claws.

Oy hoped that one day Miss Elsa would allow her to hold Butterscotch, but she'd never asked. Other children always seemed to crowd around the cage first.

Frankie teased Oy when Miss Elsa wasn't looking. Because she was new, Oy didn't know whether to talk to her teacher about this or not. Maybe it wasn't serious. Maybe being thought Chinese wasn't a bad thing even though Frankie was trying to make her think so.

"Then what are you?" asked Frankie, putting both hands in his pockets, where he kept his special trading cards.

She was about to say: Thai. From Thailand. A country near China, but not China. A country with elephants and green jungle. But Frankie was already talking to Santiago instead.

Miss Elsa turned around. Oy uncovered her picture. It showed her family. But instead of giving them straight black hair and almond-shaped eyes, she'd chosen the brown crayon for the hair and had made the eyes round as coins.

At her old school, no one had said anything to her about being Asian. But since her family had moved across town and she had to go to fourth grade in a new school after the year had begun, this boy Frankie was already bothering her.

"What are you drawing?" Frankie continued. "It couldn't be you and your family. They're all Chinese. Those people look Mexican."

Mexican? She was trying to make them look American. She glanced up at Frankie's eyes. If only she had eyes like all the others, Frankie wouldn't be teasing her.

Because of Frankie, kids on the playground called her China, Spanish for Chinese, or sometimes Chinita, little Chinese.

Before Oy came from Thailand, she'd looked at pictures of Americans. They had light hair and skin and eyes. When she'd arrived in America though, she saw people of all colors, including very dark ones with black curly hair and even Thai people. Here at school, the children were mostly brown with round eyes.

Just then Liliandra let go of Butterscotch with a squeal. Frankie jumped forward to grab the furry body scampering past his sneakers. When he picked up the hamster, he turned toward Oy. For a moment, it seemed that he would reach out and hand her the soft little animal. But he walked away instead, making a show of stroking and cooing to Butterscotch.

_______

THE GOLD-THREADED DRESS by Carolyn Marsden. Copyright (c) 2006 by Carolyn Marsden. Published by Candlewick Press, Inc., Cambridge, MA.

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