Kimberly and her mother immigrate to NYC from Hong Kong, but immediately find themselves working in a garment factory owned by Kimberly’s aunt, who has meticulously detailed every cent that they owe her for paying their medical bills, travel expenses, and housing. They “rent” an unheated, barely-furnished space from the aunt and Kimberly must find time to focus on school while not helping out her mother at the factory. She has a ferocious academic talent but little knowledge of English, particularly slurred words or slang. I like how the English that she hears is rendered in the closest word approximations she can manage; for instance, when her public school teacher gives the class a map and says to “fill in allde captal see T’s;” understandably, Kimberly is lost. I also love how Cantonese is rendered word-for-word into English in her conversations with other immigrants, not just the slang terms or idioms but simple, common phrases like “come eat rice!” which is the literal translation of “dinnertime!” Kimberly’s rags-to-riches journey stretches the boundaries of belief, but her experience of being caught between languages and cultures is captured beautifully.
Day: May 1, 2023
Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow
Middle-grade fantasy, because my kids said it was cool (and they were right!). Great beginning, in which young Morrigan is attempting to write apology letters to members of the community; it turned out she is a “cursed child,” cause of bad luck to anyone she encounters, and doomed to die on her eleventh birthday. However, at the last moment, she is whisked away to a magical city called Nevermoor, under the wing of a whimsical and secretive man named Jupiter North. In Nevermoor, Morrigan undergoes trial after trial to try to win a place in the magical city, while making friends and enemies, and getting ever closer to the truth of her “curse” and why Jupiter wanted her so badly. Very satisfying adventure fantasy, and Morrigan’s character strikes the right balance of respect, curiosity, and mischief.
Paladin’s Hope, by T. Kingfisher
Third in the Saint of Steel series, in which traumatized paladins find love with unlikely partners while investigating murder mysteries. (It actually works really well.) The paladin at the center of this book is Galen, who jokes around by day and screams through nightmares in his sleep; the person he grows close to is Piper, a lich-doctor (basically an investigative coroner) with a fierce sense of justice and secrets of his own; the murder mystery involves corpses turning up in rivers with mysterious and varied death-wounds. Nice societal commentary on the role of the gnoles in human society, as well. As with other Kingfisher characters, Galen and Piper are attracted to each other not just because they’re handsome, but because of one another’s competence; as a reader, it’s one of my favorite tropes.