Julie wakes one morning to the “BANG / CRASH / BOOOOM” of the Chinese opera “thundering from the TV” while Poh Poh practices her sword dancing. Julie has so many questions. Over egg tarts in Chinatown, Poh Poh spins stories of growing up in China, where Cantonese opera performers frequented her father’s tea house. When her father stopped paying her school fees—“There’s no use educating a girl. You’ll be married off soon enough”—she found nurturing teachers among the performers. At last, she joined them on stage after intensive training with her sword; she recalls how as a performer she could be “commanding, brave, and bold—things I could not be in my real life.” But bold she was, eventually traveling to the other side of the world and escaping the “sky demons dropping bombs.” Safe from war, she built a life in Gun San (as many Cantonese people referred to North America) that eventually allowed Julie to “learn to read and write and dance and sing and dream.” Hune-Brown’s upbeat, affectionate picture-book debut is rooted in a CBC Radio documentary she made about her grandmother. Lowe’s vibrant illustrations, rendered in pencil, watercolor, and Procreate, extend the text with enticing details: family photos, favorite ducks both plushy and real, and identifiable Toronto.