Just as the main character likens herself, Sam, and their relationship to celestial forces (the earth, the rain the sun), she also likens them to animal ones, namely, whimsically as Shark and Lion, in conjunction to bath towels they had for Noah and Lily. She asserts that these animals are “the wild things we used to be” (127), and in making this remark, the author brings us back to a reference made on line 4 of page 1, Maurice Sendak’s Where the Whild Things Are.
Why do you think special attention is drawn to this other source (Where the Wild Things Are)? What is special about the narrative it tells and what parallels exist to this one? (If you haven't read the 1963 picture book Where the Wild Things Are or haven't read it recently, check it out at the library, online or at a local bookstore. The audiobook is literally 5 minutes long.
Consider the narrator's choice to reference this book twice by the light of her observation on page 128 about what "the kind of stories you choose to tell say about you." What does this story tell us about the narrator? Or the author?
Consider the main character's decions to start telling her children Chinese folk tales (page 39 and later) and the way she sees these stories as tangled up with her identity? How are you as a reader analogous to the children in the story in the sense that you are hearing these narratives too?
Do you or your family have any favorite stories or anecdotes that you frequently retell? What might they tell listeners about the story-tellers? Similarly are there any books or movies that you frequently re-watch? What do they say about your values and worldview?
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