The Rock in My Throat

A true story from Yang's own childhood, told for young readers. Having watched how adults treated her parents when they tried to speak English, she stopped speaking at school altogether, a selective mutism she carried for years. The book names the thing plainly, without turning it into a lesson, and the silence on the page is given weight rather than pity. For Hmong American children it offers something rare: a picture book in which the shame of a parent's accent is spoken aloud and survived. For every other reader it is a quiet, precise account of what a child absorbs from adults who think children are not listening. Pair it with From the Tops of the Trees, its companion in this catalog, for the camp years that came before. For ages 5 to 9, for classrooms, and for parents who were the children in this story.