On the left is the book, in the middle American food/chicken, on the right is Chinese food/chicken
“Never let go of hope. One day you will see that it all has come together. What you have always wished for has finally come to be.
This book is about a girl who is moving to America from China, is it easy? No! when she goes to school all the kids ignore her, and misses her home In China. How would you feel if you had to move very far away from the home you lived in, and nobody but your parents and family listened to you?
The story starts out something like this: “In the year 4645 there was a Sixth Cousin called Bandit, and he lived halfway across the world from New York. One morning a letter arrived at the House of Wong, it was from father, who was sailing against four seas.” On the stamp sat an ugly duckling. Just kidding! “On the stamp sat an ugly bald bird. And the paper was blue, when mother read it, it made Grandmother cry, and Grandfather angry,” weird right? “No one gave Sixth Cousin even the smallest hint why.” Shirley, the little girl soon figured out this meant she was traveling to America. She was excited to see her father again.
Once in America Shirley struggles with everything. School and finding friends is difficult at first. Learning the language is hard. Shirley eventually makes an unlikely friend with a girl who at first was not very nice to her. She joins a stick ball team at school and falls in love with the game of baseball, Jackie Robinson and the Dodgers. On April 15, Jackie Robinson was the opening day first baseman for the Brooklyn Dodgers, becoming the first black player in Major League Baseball. Robinson went on to bat .297, score 125 runs, steal 29 bases and be named the very first African-American Rookie of the Year. The Dodgers won the National League title and went on to lose to the New York Yankees in the 1947 World Series.
This story is difficult to get into a first for a child. The narrative is quite difficult for a younger kid to read, as it is told in terms of how the Chinese culture is told to one another. This proves to be a good point to tell children a bit of how strange immigrant children think our culture is. With all the talk in the country currently about immigration and children, it is good insight and paints a picture of the struggle kids have to assimilate to our country and culture. This is a good book to read together or in a classroom setting.
This review was written by Mom and child.
