The Year of the Dog began as a sequel to Grace's beloved book The Ugly Vegetables. However, as Grace began to write, the book would just not fit in a picturebook format. There were so many memories--funny stories that needed to be told, poignant stories that couldn't be left out, family stories that insisted on being written...they just couldn't be contained in 32 pages. Finally, Grace realized that it wanted to be a novel and let it become The Year of the Dog!

The book is fiction, but almost everything had a real life inspiration. Here are some of the things that are true! Do they surprise you?