Magnolia Wu Unfolds It All

“Magnolia hesitated before blowing it out, knowing that as soon as she did, her parents’ attention would be pulled back into work, so she took a long inhale, then blew out the candle with her nose to amuse her dad.”

Because they work long hours to support the family, even on her birthday, Magnolia cannot have her parents’ full attention. Her internal thoughts and her choice to blow the candle out in a way that amuses her father highlight her sense of humor, her loving heart, and her deep desire for connection.

“The subway is too crowded, the air smells like baked diapers.”

Iris’s comically vivid olfactory image—characteristic of the text’s sense of humor—depicts the negative side of New York City. Her opinion contrasts sharply with Magnolia’s at this point, and Magnolia feels challenged to show Iris the positive side of the city she loves, pushing her from passivity to action.

“If you can’t understand English, you shouldn’t be running a business.”

When the angry customer shouts at Mrs. Wu, she makes it clear that she thinks Mrs. Wu is someone she can treat badly without social consequences—an example of the racist attitudes and behaviors Magnolia and her family encounter every day. The woman assumes, based on Mrs. Wu’s ethnic background, that she does not understand English well. This kind of treatment is part of what makes it hard for Magnolia to be proud of her parents’ laundromat at the start of the story, highlighting her need to develop confidence and find her own voice.

“Whenever Magnolia saw him, her hands clammed up and her stomach became tingly, like she’d swallowed glitter.”

Magnolia’s reaction to Luis implies that she has a romantic crush on him. The pleasure and discomfort of new romantic feelings—a central element of middle-grade fiction and coming-of-age narratives—are both conveyed through her physical reaction to him. Although she has the uncomfortable feeling of sweaty hands and a tingling stomach, the simile “like she’d swallowed glitter” conveys the beauty, excitement, and pleasure of her feelings, too.

“It had never occurred to Magnolia to take action to return the socks herself. She thought of life as something that unfolded around her and happened to her while she was content being an observer.”

Iris’s plan to reunite the socks with their owners pushes Magnolia to move from passive to active as they leave the laundromat and explore the city. Learning to take action represents an important step in Magnolia’s transformation as a dynamic character in the story.

“Most importantly, for the first time in a long time, she had a friend, someone who believed in her before she did, which is a powerful thing.”

Magnolia’s internal perspective highlights the importance of The Gift of Friendship in her life, which Miller makes explicit with the word “powerful.” Iris’s belief in Magnolia boosts her confidence and lessens her feelings of weakness and vulnerability.

“Even if you make a wrong guess or go backward, you must keep moving, adapting as you go along. There’ll be plenty of confusion and frustration, but there’ll be surprises and small victories, too.”

Carl’s advice to Magnolia and Iris is the first of many pieces of wisdom offered during their quest to reunite socks and owners. The two friends are wrong in their guess that Carl owns the black-and-white checkered sock, but they’ve gained something from their wrong guess: a good piece of life advice—exactly the kind of “small victory” Carl is talking about.

“Magnolia had never thought of an error as a creative act.”

Lisa’s advice helps Magnolia see life—and herself—in a new way, emphasizing The Gift of Wider Perspective. She’s easily embarrassed and often very concerned about making mistakes. Through Lisa’s eyes, she sees that mistakes can be evidence of strength rather than weakness, helping to decrease her feelings of vulnerability and build her confidence.

“Iris pulled out the checkered sock and handed it over with a small curtsey. ‘Hello, ta-da, I’m Iris.’”

Miller presents Iris’s first conversation with Luis as a stark contrast to Magnolia’s awkward encounter with him earlier in the text. This scene highlights how Magnolia’s crush flusters her and reinforces her lack of self-confidence. Iris, on the other hand, has plenty of confidence: she gives a funny mock-curtsey when she meets Luis and hands over his sock.

“She’d never seen this adventurous, rebellious spirit Auntie Mei was describing. Even now, if Magnolia so much as touched the crosswalk button, Mrs. Wu would squirt sanitizer into her hand.”

Magnolia is still young enough to struggle with the idea that her mother was ever different than she is now and to understand how she, herself, will also change as she gets older and has more responsibilities. One of the gifts that Magnolia receives because of her adventures with Iris is becoming more aware of her mother as a person and more curious about her mother’s inner life—one of many examples of how Magnolia’s adventures help her develop the gift of a wider perspective.

“Even when the electricity went out, or it flooded, or everyone had fled New York, there was Levi.”

Magnolia is surrounded by hard-working role models—adults like her parents, Levi, and Mr. Mateo, who put in long hours each day regardless of the circumstances. These secondary characters help to develop the setting of Manhattan, where a high cost of living means that many people have no choice but to work long hours to survive.

“People are walking around saying big words like xylophone, peperoncini, Guggenheim Museum. If they can’t make the effort to learn her name, then that’s big-time baloney.”

When Zito learns that Mrs. Wu only uses the English name “Shirley” because she is afraid people will not know how to pronounce her Chinese name, Xiaohua, he makes sure that Magnolia understands that her mother has every right to expect others to learn her Chinese name if she chooses to use it. He emphasizes that refusing to learn unfamiliar Chinese names is a form of bigotry, which he encourages Magnolia to recognize, question, and push back against.

“Magnolia detected that Aspen was getting agitated and felt an odd satisfaction, withholding something that he wanted, finally having some power for once. But then she felt Iris put a hand on her shoulder, telling her to ease up.”

Some of Magnolia’s insecurity comes from the powerlessness people like Aspen make her feel. Having the confident Iris at her side makes Magnolia feel more powerful, encouraging her toward better behavior. Magnolia shows her growth when she voluntarily gives up her temporary advantage over Aspen and hands him back his sock.

“You don’t even know how good you have it.”

Although Aspen has bullied Magnolia for a long time, in this moment he chooses to be vulnerable and tell her something she needs to hear. Because Magnolia so often focuses on what she cannot get from her parents—fancy vacations, lots of attention and family time, and so on—she forgets the fact that she has advantages others do not. She has two loving and kind parents, which is something Aspen does not have. Her growing empathy helps her gain a wider, more nuanced perspective.

“Magnolia couldn’t believe it—that TV ice cream was just a pile of boiled vegetables, that Jessica could ever feel lonely. How much she’d assumed about Jessica’s life without ever actually asking her.”

As Magnolia spends more time with the people in her neighborhood, she learns unexpected information about them, developing The Gift of a Wider Perspective. She discovers that people are often more complicated than they first appear and that it’s unfair to assume things about them without getting to know them as individuals. Miller echoes this lesson in the symbol of the mashed potatoes, which represent the difference between surface appearances and deeper reality.

“There was a dog that looked like a potato sprouting hair and a dog trotting on legs thinner than chopsticks and a dog that was most likely a small bear. Magnolia had never seen anything like it.”

This imagery is typical of Miller’s comic descriptions. She uses polysyndeton—the repetition of conjunctions to create an additive effect—to convey an image of the many dogs piling up around the dog walker. She uses hyperbole to claim that one dog has legs “thinner than chopsticks” and in her humorous metamorphic claim that one dog is probably a “small bear.” The tremendous variety of the dogs echoes the variety of people in Magnolia’s New York neighborhood. The friendly chaos created by the dogs as they walk together conveys how New Yorkers can get along even when they are seemingly piled on top of one another in the crowded city.

“Magnolia had never had a best friend and didn’t know the responsibilities of her new position.”

Magnolia’s relationship with Iris encourages her to grow. She realizes that there are things she does not know about being a real friend, and she is motivated to learn them for the sake of keeping Iris in her life—a goal that propels the plot forward.

“It was humiliating, the way people made them feel like they were not worthy of being understood, too odd to be respected, too unfamiliar to belong.”

Magnolia’s list stresses the feelings of exclusion and rejection that racist attitudes and actions create. Her list uses asyndeton, creating a more urgent and emotional tone than would a list written in the usual way, with “and” between “respected” and “too.” Most people experiencing overt racism would feel terrible—but Magnolia and Iris’s age makes them especially vulnerable to the fear, sadness, anger, and confusion such an incident generates.

“Magnolia couldn’t let the red-spray-painted words be absorbed into her friend—she thought about the flamingoes, about the words people said that could change what you believed about yourself.”

Magnolia learns a helpful lesson about life from her interactions with Aspen. His symbolic use of flamingoes to represent a person’s ability to choose what to absorb and how to change helps her as she considers what Iris is going through. Magnolia’s experiences in her neighborhood connecting with people like Aspen broaden her perspective. This wider perspective is useful to her now, as she considers how to help Iris regain her confidence.

“Mrs. Wu looked at Magnolia, and her mouth expanded into a large circle as she yelled ‘CLOOOOOSED!!!’”

This passage represents a pivotal moment for Magnolia and her mother. When Mrs. Wu shouts to the customer that the laundromat is closed, it is a clear sign that she is putting Magnolia first—something that Magnolia feels never happens. Miller conveys the importance of the moment visually through the eye dialect of the many o’s in “CLOOOOOSED” and the repeated exclamation points. Both techniques emphasize how forcefully Mrs. Wu calls out and how meaningful this gesture is.

“You know, when I was your age, I always snuck out—I knew something more was out there. I was always searching, going anywhere I could to see what I’d find. And now look, I was right. This whole life was waiting for me here.”

Mrs. Wu’s words affirm how lucky she feels in her current life—an important message for Magnolia to hear as she struggles with her feelings about the racist graffiti. They also clearly connect her present happiness to her early explorations, stressing the relationship between connecting with the city around her and developing the gift of a wider perspective—a lesson that Magnolia is currently learning for herself as she explores the city with Iris.

“It was easier to speak through the sock, like it was me, but not me […] It could express things I couldn’t. Anger, worry, wanting things.”

Iris’s explanation of the role Mr. Ketchup played in her life fills in the backstory of how she developed the confidence that she has at the beginning of the story. Although Iris’s journey toward developing confidence and finding one's voice is still ongoing, she notes that Mr. Ketchup helped her get started by giving her a less-threatening way to advocate for herself and share troubling emotions.

“She was part of a group. A sock squad! And none of this would’ve happened without Iris, who’d saved the idea that Magnolia once tried to throw away.”

The alliteration and exclamation point in “sock squad!” highlight Magnolia’s happy excitement at being a part of a group of friends. She also recognizes Iris’s role in connecting her with others—illustrating how dramatically Magnolia’s situation has changed from the beginning of the story and how important the gift of friendship is in her life.