The Year Of The Rat

The narrative begins on Chinese New Year’s Eve as Pacy’s family hosts a celebration dinner for her best friend Melody’s family. The dinner marks the start of the Year of the Rat. Pacy’s father, Dad, recounts the story of the twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac, explaining how the clever rat became the first. Pacy’s mother, Mom, and Melody’s mother note that the Year of the Rat symbolizes new beginnings and changes, a concept that makes Pacy uneasy.

After dinner, the families write down their New Year’s resolutions. Pacy’s list includes becoming an author and illustrator and having good luck. Melody’s list includes the resolution to stay in New Hartford. She then reveals to Pacy that her father’s company may transfer him to a job in California. Pacy is devastated by the news. If Melody moves, Pacy will be the only Asian student in her elementary school besides her younger sister, Ki-Ki, and she fears everything will change.

Soon after, Pacy’s class takes a field trip to Fort Stanwix, a Revolutionary War fort. Pacy feels self-conscious about her identity after her friends Becky and Charlotte react negatively to a comment she makes about Chinese culture. At the fort, Pacy and Melody discuss the potential move. Melody explains that if her family leaves, a Chinese family will rent their house, and the girls begin referring to this unknown family as “the enemy.” Later, Pacy’s family travels to Albany for her cousin Max’s first birthday. During a fortune-telling ritual, Dad refers to being an artist as choosing the “cold door,” a difficult life of poverty. This troubles Pacy, who dreams of being an author and illustrator. At the party, her older cousin, Clifford, announces his engagement to a woman named Lian.

Melody soon confirms that her family is moving to California in two months. Pacy begs her parents to intervene, but they refuse, explaining that some things are a matter of fate. Feeling helpless, Pacy blames the Year of the Rat for the unwanted changes. She helps Melody pack, and the girls devise a plan to mail books back and forth to stay connected.

On Melody’s last day of school, the art teacher, Mr. Valente, makes special arrangements so she can finish her part of a class quilt project at home. Pacy’s family drives Melody’s family to the airport for an emotional goodbye. On the drive home, Mom comforts a sad Pacy by sharing the story of “Amah Waters the Roses,” about how Pacy’s great-grandmother lovingly tended her garden after Pacy’s mother moved to America.

School continues without Melody, and Pacy feels lost. When a new partner project on Vikings is announced, she initially declines to work with Becky and Charlotte. A new student from China, Dun-Wei Liu, moves into Melody’s old house. When others mock Dun-Wei for being “fresh off the boat,” he gets into a fight on the playground. Pacy witnesses the bullying but turns away, ashamed and afraid of being associated with him. To avoid becoming an outcast herself, she joins Becky and Charlotte’s project group.

The school asks Mom to help the Liu family adjust, leading to Pacy’s family having dinner at their house. To teach her daughters empathy, Mom shares a story about mistakenly eating cat food when she first came to the US. The dinner with the Lius is awkward but reveals they are not so different from Pacy’s family. Pacy feels increasingly isolated later at her birthday party, when Charlotte suggests Pacy and Dun-Wei would be a “cute couple” because they are both Chinese, making Pacy feel like an outsider. She makes a wish for her life to go back to the way it was before all the changes.

A series of events reinforces Pacy’s feeling of being unlucky. She loses a library book and has to pay for it, only to discover she accidentally mailed it to Melody. Her group gets a C+ on their Viking project. Mom expresses disappointment that Pacy did not try her best and recounts a story about the harsh punishments she endured for bad grades in Taiwan to emphasize the importance of effort. The family then attends Cousin Clifford’s wedding in Boston. Pacy feels left out during the church ceremony, which is conducted in Taiwanese, but is later included in a bed-jumping tradition for good luck, which makes her feel like an important part of the celebration.

A new school year begins, and a talent show is announced. Pacy feels her talent for writing and drawing is unsuitable. During a Moon Festival celebration with Dun-Wei’s family, Pacy observes him eating bitter-melon soup and has a moment of profound empathy, realizing the “bitterness” he must have experienced. She feels guilty and makes a secret wish to change herself. At Thanksgiving, after Pacy claims she has nothing to be thankful for, Mom describes a poor classmate who pretended to eat from an empty lunch box, reminding Pacy to appreciate what she has.

Pacy finds a way to participate in the talent show by volunteering to create the promotional poster. Meanwhile, Dun-Wei joins their classmate Sam Mercer’s band as the keyboard player. Pacy works hard on the poster but feels her contribution is ignored during the show. The next day, however, a photo of her holding the poster appears in the local newspaper, which misspells her name as “Grace Lin.” The recognition makes her famous at school, and her crush, Sam Mercer, compliments her work. Reinvigorated, Pacy discusses her fear of the “cold door” with her dad, who uses a story to illustrate that only she can know herself and make her own decisions, reminding her she is brave like the tiger, her zodiac animal.

Pacy resolves to take control of her circumstances. Melody calls to announce she is visiting for the next Chinese New Year. For a new school project, Pacy recommits to her dream by deciding to work alone on a book about pandas. Feeling brave, she tells Becky and Charlotte that it is mean to call Dun-Wei “Dumb-Way,” and her friends agree, healing their strained relationship. The family prepares for Chinese New Year, buying new clothes.

The Year of the Rat concludes with Melody’s visit. The girls reconnect as if no time has passed. Pacy reflects on the year’s difficult changes and realizes that while much is different, the most important things, like family and true friends, have remained constant. She ends the year feeling confident and empowered, understanding that while fate exists, she has the strength to shape her own destiny.