BY RYAN E. SMITH
BLADE STAFF WRITER
What's remarkable about Yuhui Andrew Ding isn't that he self-published a short book at the age of 14, but, rather, that he did it in what was basically a foreign language when he started: English
The Ottawa Hills High School freshman began writing the book for young adults, Warrior Soul, about a year after moving from China to the United States in 2005 to join his mother, who had come here for postdoctoral work. When he got to America, Andrew knew little of the language and found it hard to communicate.
"I knew some words and a few phrases, but I couldn't form sentences on my own," he said. "It's like I couldn't talk at all."
The young man got to work on Warrior Soul — a story that centers on an ordinary kid named Andrew who is given special powers to battle a super villain — after experiencing a range of negative emotions because of the isolation created by the language barrier.
"I was angry and just frustrated. Sometimes I would just feel sad," he said. "I would turn away people because I had no choice."
It helped that he got involved in an English as a Second Language program, but what gave him the idea of trying to write in his adopted language was a peer who was working on his own tale.
Imagine the astonishment of Andrew's mother, Dr. Hong Xie, when she learned of her son's ambitious plans.
"I was very surprised," she said. "You just came here and you can write a novel? It's good if you can do it."
To complete the project, Andrew relied on help from friends, teachers, and three dictionaries.
"The first one, it didn't have enough words," he said. "The second one broke [after extensive use]. The third one, now I don't use it anymore."
In the end, he said, "It improved my English a lot. It also made me more confident when I talk and communicate."
Bill Miller, who teaches seventh-grade English, noticed that confidence and how Andrew expressed his sense of humor more as the year progressed.
"His sense of humor had to do with puns, so they were language-related," he said.
Although the publication, illustrated by Andrew and available on Amazon.com, is a familiar tale of good and evil, it's also a story about much more, said Rebecca McLean, the librarian at Ottawa Hills Junior-Senior High School who bought two copies and donated them to the school library.
"The book is not the kind of book I would be drawn to because of the nature of the kind of comic book characters and the fighting, but there is something deeper in the story that I really like," she said. "It's a book about friendship and belief in oneself and belief in one's ability. ...."
These days, Andrew appears to be your typical American teen, both in how he speaks and by other measures.
He plays football at school and has been involved in singing competitions. But his next big challenge will bring him back to Warrior Soul.
"Right now I'm trying to translate it into Chinese so the people back in China could read it," he said.
Originally published in The Blade on Saturday, December 26, 2009
Yuhui Andrew Ding wrote his book for young adults after feeling 'angry and just frustrated' because of the language barrier. (THE BLADE/JETTA FRASER)
Theme for Ottawa Hills student is super power