Michelle Wang explores dementia and celebrates family in new book

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When you ask Michelle Wang’s youngest daughter what her mother does, she proudly tells you that her mom is an author and an aloe farmer. The author part is true – her new picture book Oma’s Bag has just come out. But what amuses Wang about this description is the overstated focus on aloe farming (the family has a hyperactive, overachieving aloe plant that regularly needs to be repotted to propagate its never-ending supply of aloe pups) and how her daughter omits entirely Wang’s primary occupation of elementary teacher. 

It was largely because of her teaching that Wang became an author. She was once such an avid reader that she had to take a years-long hiatus from reading novels because “I couldn’t put down a book until I finished the last page”. This all-consuming love for stories “became a problem, with kids needing to be fed, washed and tucked into bed!”  While she was getting that habit in check, she noticed as a teacher that there was a gap in the world of kids’ stories. It prompted her to write her first book, the first in the Seasons series.  

A second such gap is the genesis of Wang’s new picture book, Oma’s Bag (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2024), which delves into the poignant and complex dynamics of a family learning to adjust to their grandmother’s dementia. In the story, various household items and toys mysteriously disappear only to turn up in their beloved Oma’s handbag. Each time, Oma has a wonderful story to recount – revealing not only why she put each item in her purse, but also her association with it. In listening to their grandmother’s stories, the family learns about the person she used to be, while embracing who she is now. 

Inspired by her own experiences, Wang’s narrative offers a heartfelt exploration of “how a family – our family –  dealt with this terrible diagnosis of our loved one,” she explains. “Rather than changing what we could not, we tried to meet Oma where she was, and make the best of the situation. Instead of mourning what had been, we chose to live fully in the moment and found out that life with Oma could still be fun and heartwarming.” 

Through Oma’s Bag, Wang hopes to offer families reading the book a sense of hope and joy reflected in the pages and their own lives. “In the very least, reading the book could be a starting point to have conversations with, or answer questions from, young children,” she offers. In addition to the story, the book provides links to resources that will help adults discuss Alzheimer’s with children, plus listing activities that families can do with loved ones affected by this disease.

Wang was born and raised in Toronto, and currently resides there with her husband and four children, who play a major role in Oma’s Bag, “and if anyone is keeping count in the book, the fifth child is our niece, and Carter is our dog-nephew,” she smiles. Especially instructive is children’s innate ability to accept changes that adults find challenging – a perspective beautifully illustrated in the portrayal of Oma through the eyes of the Lim children. “I’m not entirely sure that children need to understand anything from the portrayal of Oma that they don’t already know,” Michelle reflects. “My experience with young children is that they take things as they come.” 

To illustrate the point, she describes a friend’s daughter, who used to walk everywhere on her toes. Concerned about the child’s leg developing properly, the doctor put her into a knee-high cast for several months. Wang thought about how annoyed she would be if she found herself in in this predicament. She wondered how the little girl would cope . . . until she saw the little girl running around in her toy kitchen kicking a ball – cast and all – without a care in the world. “I think that’s just a kid’s world: one day you’re happily tiptoeing through life, and the next you have this huge cast on your leg. ‘Oh, well. No big deal. Carry on’,” Wang marvels. In keeping with this sentiment, she hopes that adults reading Oma’s Bag to their children can see past the sadness of the situation and, like Oma and her grandchildren, find small moments to enjoy and to embrace who and what is still there.

The relationship between Oma and Opa (Grandfather) is another central focus of the book. Wang recalls a moment one morning over the breakfast table when her father-in-law expressed feeling as if his wife was “slipping away”. She admits that “at the time, I couldn’t think of anything comforting to say.” But over the next few days, she watched carefully as Oma happily watered Wang’s aloe plant every time she walked by it, and laughingly told the family the same story from her childhood, over and over again. What Wang realized was that Oma was “still completely with us, in the present”, and her simple joys and repeated stories became a cherished part of the family’s daily lives. 

“She might not have seemed exactly like the person we knew before, but this version of her was very much alive and capable of participating in life and interacting with us.” It was a question of perspective. So she stopped getting upset about Oma turning off the stove every time Wang tried to cook something: “Okay, let’s be real – [I was] boiling water so I could throw in some frozen dumplings”. Instead, she and the children would play the “Oma turned off the stove again” game – “or better yet, we just went out for dinner” – and daily life went a lot more smoothly.

Writing Oma’s Bag ultimately became a way of responding to her father-in-law. Although Wang realizes that her sense of loss for who Oma used to be cannot be compared to Opa’s, it is her sincere hope that “he can find comfort, and maybe even a different perspective, in this love letter to our family”. And as other families navigate the challenges of a loved one’s dementia, the book can help them find a way to process their loss of the person they once knew – while appreciating who that person still is. 

Illustrator Sam Nunez is vital in bringing Wang’s story to life with his vibrant and dynamic artwork. Wang previously worked with a Ukrainian illustrator for her It Must Be… book series, but she chose Nunez for his close-to-home connection and personal touch. Wang’s older sister was the one to suggest Nunez, who was her son’s good friend and had studied Art Fundamentals at Sheridan College. The first thing Wang asked Nunez to do was to draw his interpretations of the characters from photos she sent him. “When he sent back his version of Opa – who not only looked exactly like my father-in-law but seemed to embody his entire essence – I knew Sam was the one,” she says.  After that, the two met so she could share her ideas about how some of the pages should look, and he could build on these with his own options. Their collaboration resulted in illustrations that perfectly complement the heartfelt narrative: “the end result is something that is better than anything I could have come up with, even if I knew how to draw”

When asked who is her favorite character in Oma’s Bag, Wang expresses mock horror: “Eeeep! That would be a hard question for me to answer, even if they weren’t my entire family and some of my most favourite people in the world.” 

This deep affection for her characters and their real-life inspirations shines through on every page of Oma’s Bag, making it a touching, relatable, memorable – and helpfully, thoughtfully inspirational – read for readers of all ages in homes and classrooms everywhere. 

Questions from young readers:

1. How does being an elementary teacher help you to write for children?

Michelle Wang: I actually wrote my first book as a grade-one teacher looking for a book to read aloud to my class about the signs of autumn. At the time, I could only find non-fiction books on the topic and not an actual story.  Although the cross-curricular connections and early-reader learning strategies were intentional and what I could use in the classroom, I guess I ended up writing It Must Be Autumn really to be a fun storybook I would want to read to my children.

2. Why did Oma put everything in her bag?

Michelle Wang: We did ask Oma that question when we first discovered our lost items in her bag. She just laughed and said the things were hers, or she didn’t know where “that” came from, or “oh no, I didn’t put this in my bag.” While writing Oma’s Bag, I imagined she collected objects that had significance to her since there was often a story to go along with it. Incidentally, we never did get to the bottom of the reason as to why she always took the entire roll of toilet paper from our our washrooms. (Hmmm, the resulting adventures of family members finding this out too late might make for another hilarious book.)

3. Who’s your favourite character in the book?

Michelle Wang: Eeeep! That would be a hard question for me to answer even if they weren’t my entire family and some of my most favourite people in the world. I love all the characters with all my heart and wouldn’t trade them (or pick a favourite) for a can of beans on a mole hill.

4. Who were your favourite authors to read when you were a kid?

Michelle Wang: I used to write down every single book I read in a well used notebook.  The very first title on that list was Socks by Beverly Cleary followed by all the other books I could find by her.  I also loved matching wits with Encyclopedia Brown Boy Detective by Donald J. Sobel, following all of the Peter and Fudge’s mishaps as written by Judy Blume, imagining myself tagging along on Pippi Longstocking’s adventures by Astrid Lindgren, and laughing myself to the point of hyperventilation with every single Gordon Korman book. There are so many other authors that are my favourite: if you can make me laugh, cry, or just keep turning the pages, you had me at page one.

5. Do people like your book?

Honestly, one of the most rewarding things about writing Oma’s Bag has been to hear the personal stories people have and want to share about their own experiences. A teacher friend of mine recently told me about about the time she was reading Oma’s Bag to her class.  The Special Needs Assistant happened to walk in, and as she loved listening to this teacher’s read-alouds, stopped to listen. At one point, the SNA walked from the front of the classroom where the story had been projected on the Smartboard, to the back. She had gone to get tissues. At the end of the story, the SNA said to my friend while wiping her eyes, “This is my mother.  This is our life now. This lady in the book is exactly like my mother.  What a beautiful story.”

6. Are you writing another book now?

Michelle Wang: I am writing all sorts of books in my head right now: once or twice daily, something happens in my everyday life and I suddenly see it unfold as a full page illustration spread, or a line in a story or a written piece of dialogue in a book. In terms of actually putting pen to paper, or keyboard strokes to screen, the closest thing would be a very rough draft of a spin-off book with the jokester squirrels from my It Must Be Seasons series.  Truthfully though, nothing about my author journey up until now has been planned, so I’m as interested as the next person as to where my path will take me next.

© Arpita Ghosal, SesayArts Magazine, 2024