42 pages • 1 hour read
Lily LaMotte, Illustr. Ann XuMeasuring Up
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2020A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 1-4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary
At the beginning of the graphic novel, Cici lives in Taiwan. Her favorite flavor of boba tea is mango. She and her friends enjoy watching the panda at the zoo or running across the Dragon Bridge. Cici’s A-má—her grandmother—is the “best part” of living in Taiwan, and she loves spending time with her at the market.
Cici’s narration notes that her grandmother only speaks Taiwanese to her, and so they converse in Taiwanese as they cook dumplings.
A month after the narrative begins, Cici’s parents decide to move to America, and Cici does not want to go. A-má comforts her, having her wash the rice until the water becomes clear. A-má can’t come with them because she doesn’t have a green card. Cici tells her grandmother to come visit for her 70th birthday. Cici tells herself that it will happen, thinking of how A-má herself always keeps her promises.
A-má gives Cici her secret spice combination, which she learned from her own grandmother. In a series of black-and-white memory panels, she recounts how her grandmother taught her to make the spice blend. She says she’ll teach Cici, who is excited by all of the new tastes even as she is sad to leave Taiwan.
At the going away party, there are two tables: one with eight chairs and one with three, since A-má thinks they are lucky numbers. Cici sits with her friends, and they share their last meal together.
Chapter 2 Summary
Chapter 3 Summary
Cici quickly makes friends with Jenna, another student in her class, even though she was worried she wouldn’t make friends. At lunch, she eats pickled cucumbers and rice. The boys at her lunch table tease her, saying that she’s eating rotten worms.
The other two girls at her table defend her, and Emily invites her over on Saturday. Cici feels that she should not bring Taiwanese food for lunch anymore.
On Saturday, Cici’s parents drop her off at Emily’s. Emily begins by speaking slowly, but Cici corrects her, pointing out that she’s been learning English since she was little. Emily apologizes, and Cici forgives her. She secretly thinks Americans are odd for having fireplaces.
Cici enjoys hanging out at Emily’s, and her friends are surprised when her parents come to pick her up. They ask if she is going to sleepover, something that Cici thinks of as a “strange American custom” though she tries to convince her parents to let her stay. They don’t think it’s a good idea, and Cici’s mom offers to stay over too. Cici gives up, not wanting her parents to embarrass her.
Cici and her parents try to convince A-má to come to Lunar New Year, then the Moon Festival and the Lantern Festival. But A-má refuses.
Chapter 4 Summary
Cici video chats with A-má, thanking her for sending pineapple cakes and telling her about how she’s doing in school. A-má asks how her adjustment to Seattle is going. Cici explains that she misses her, even if she’s made new friends.
A-má agrees to visit, but she’s not sure how she’ll pay for the plane ticket. Cici says they’ll figure it out and that it’ll be a surprise for her dad.
By the time Cici’s father arrives home, Cici has already made rice and is chopping vegetables to help with dinner. As she does so, she asks if her father is happy that they moved. He replies that she will have more opportunities, and reminds her of the family motto: “Good grades, good college, good job, good life” (31). Cici believes that her father misses his mother very much.
Chapters 1-4 Analysis
The first sections of Measuring Up serve two key purposes. The first is to introduce the characters and importance of food to Cici as she migrates from Taiwan to the United States. The second illustrates how different elements of the written story will be supported and conveyed by the graphic novel’s visual elements.
Cici is the first-person narrator, meaning that she speaks directly to the reader. Her first words are: “My life in Taiwan is sweet” (1). “Sweet” is a purposeful choice in wording: It is a flavor, and foreshadows the importance of food in the narrative. This importance is deepened when Cici makes dumplings with her grandmother in the kitchen. LaMotte specifically emphasizes Cici and A-má’s Taiwanese heritage by making sure to name dumplings as tsuí-kiáu first, with an asterisk explaining what they are in English.
Through rice, the graphic novel explores the theme of Finding One’s Identity After Immigration. Washing the rice changes the water from cloudy to clear, making Cici feel like “a part of me washes away” (7). She worries that her Taiwanese identity will be lost once she’s separated from her country physically; however, rice will prove to be a lasting symbol of connection. In the first sections, the narrative shows Cici grounded in her cultural heritage, as when she tastes her grandmother’s special spice blend, thinking: “I discover a whole new world of tastes. But I am leaving my old world” (11). By the end of the novel, Cici will have her own spice blend.
It is not all easy for Cici, who contends with teasing from other students and the sense that her friends don’t understand her. For example, she pulls her “parents away before they embarrass me” because her parents don’t understand why girls in America have sleepovers (24). Cici feels that she must keep her Taiwanese and American identities separate at this point, a bisection that makes her feel like she’s not fully herself around her friends. When she opens up to Miranda, Jenna, and Emily, she will be able to build true connections. Through these relationships, the novel will explore Friendship and Teamwork Between People and Cultures, and how Cici and her friends recognize their similarities more than their differences.
The narrative also introduces the theme of Parental Expectations and Pressures via Cici’s family motto: “Good grades, good college, good job, good life” (31). Her parents push off Cici’s questions about being happy with moving to Seattle. This stems from a larger generational trend in which each successive child is expected to achieve more than their parents. It is a pressure that weighs on Cici, especially as she develops an interest in cooking, something not academic in nature.
Ann Xu, the illustrator, depicts A-má’s memories of her grandmother in black and white. Xu conveys the sounds of eating as smaller, more subtle text using onomatopoeia—where words sound like their meaning—“SLURP,” “CHOMP” and “mmm” (13). Throughout the narrative, Food is detailed in illustrations, providing a visual of Taiwanese food and other cuisines for those who may be unfamiliar with them.
