From a neglected median to a picture book
In Grace Lin’s new picture book, a girl rights a toppled statue in a neglected city lot. That small gesture sets neighbors in motion, turning an eyesore into a cared-for gathering place. The story draws on a real Oakland cleanup and a childhood favorite, bringing Lin’s focus on Asian American experience to her first book with Alvina Ling Books, a new imprint at Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. Its premise is modest by design: the girl doesn’t solve a city’s larger problems, but her action changes how people see one particular place.
The Little Stone Buddha is built from two stories that stayed with Lin. The first began in 2012, when a friend told her about a traffic median in Oakland, Calif., where people regularly dumped trash. One fed-up neighbor bought a Buddha statue at a garden center and attached it to the median with epoxy, hoping it might change how people treated the spot. The act was practical as well as symbolic: someone had taken the time to make the neglected patch feel cared for, even before there was any sign that others would follow.
It did. People began cleaning the area, and a Vietnamese woman took responsibility for the statue. She gathered other Buddhists, and together they built a shrine, planted flowers, and added more statues. The neglected median gradually became a cared-for place. The change depended on repeated attention, not one dramatic intervention; the statue gave neighbors a focal point around which they could organize their efforts.
Lin combined that account with Virginia Lee Burton’s The Little House, a favorite from her own childhood. In Burton’s book, a house left behind as the city grows around it is eventually moved back to the countryside. Lin remembers wondering about the empty black square in the illustration where the house once stood. What, she thought, if that patch of ground became a trash dump? And what if a Buddha statue appeared there? That imaginative leap connects the two sources: a space made vacant or disregarded can become the beginning of a different story.
A small act, shared
That question became the hinge of The Little Stone Buddha. Lin hopes young readers see that an ordinary person can make a meaningful difference. The girl in the book has no special strength or power; she simply notices a toppled statue and stands it upright. Her action gives others a reason to join in. The sequence matters: the book starts with attention, then shows how an individual gesture can make participation feel possible to other people.
For Lin, the story’s point is less about one person fixing everything than about what can happen when a simple gesture draws people together. She hopes teachers and students take away the idea that their own small efforts can inspire others and help change a community. That’s a more grounded message than the familiar tale of a lone hero rescuing a place. The girl begins the work, but the transformation belongs to the neighbors who keep showing up.
This is more significant than it looks. A picture book can give children a way to talk about shared spaces and shared responsibility without pretending that every problem has an easy fix. Lin’s story links care to action: noticing the damage is a start, but the place changes when people respond together.
A new publishing home and familiar worlds
Lin said she’s thrilled that The Little Stone Buddha is among the first titles from Alvina Ling Books. Ling is Lin’s longtime editor, close friend, and podcast cohost. Lin’s books have centered on Asian American experience, and she sees the new imprint as an extension of that connection: the experience shapes the stories and is now reflected in the publisher, too. That relationship gives the book a context beyond its individual plot, tying the work to an editorial home led by someone who already knows Lin’s interests and approach.
For readers, the imprint’s launch offers a way to understand the book’s place in Lin’s career. A publisher’s identity can shape which stories it brings forward and how those stories are presented, though the existence of a new imprint alone doesn’t tell us what its full publishing program will become. Here’s the thing: the clearest evidence so far is the book itself, which pairs a community story with Lin’s established attention to Asian American experience.
Lin will speak at the NCTE Children’s Literature Assembly Breakfast on November 22. Her message to educators is direct: she wants to recognize how much their work matters and tell them how much she appreciates it. That acknowledgment fits the book’s emphasis on collective effort. Teachers help young readers connect a story about one girl and one neglected lot to the everyday choices people make in their own communities.
She also has two projects on the way. A new Ling and Ting back-to-school book is due next year. More unexpectedly, Lin is returning to the world of Where the Mountain Meets the Moon with a book currently called Tale of the Goldfish Man. The character appeared in the earlier book; the new story follows the great deeds he must undertake to restore harmony at home. For readers familiar with that world, the project extends a character’s life beyond his earlier appearance. For Lin, it also means moving between distinct kinds of storytelling: an everyday neighborhood transformation and a return to a previously established fantasy setting.
What the story leaves with readers
And yet the book’s most useful idea may be its scale. The girl doesn’t need a plan for the whole city before she can act; she responds to what’s directly in front of her. If you’re working with children, that distinction can make the story a practical prompt for discussing how shared places are cared for—and how one person’s choice can invite others to take part.
Not a cure-all. A beginning.
That said, the real Oakland account also suggests why such stories can resonate: a public space can change when people treat it as something they have a stake in. The book turns that process into a clear narrative for young readers, while leaving room for the less tidy truth that lasting care takes more than a single gesture.
