Front Desk

Front Desk by Kelly Yang
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This #OwnVoices story of a 10-year-old immigrant from China who wants to be a writer and helps her family manage a motel for a racist owner who cheats them and intimidates them into accepting below-poverty wages grabbed me from the start and made me wish I could leap into the pages and rescue all the immigrants from those who take advantage of them. Finding out that many of the events in the book are based on real-life experiences of the author just made that impulse all the stronger. Sadly, I do not have the ability to protect fictional people. Now I need to focus my attention on ways to help their real-life counterparts. The story is set in the 1990s, but as we've seen in the recent days, weeks, months, and years, many people's racist attitudes towards Asians, Latinx, and African Americans haven't improved.

The extra sections at the end of this book, especially the author's background and the discussion questions, make this an excellent book club selection. Because so much of the story is based on the author's life, I am categorizing the book as "biographical fiction" as well as "realistic fiction."

For readers' advisors: Character doorway is primary, but story is also very strong. No sex or swearing. Mia's mother is beaten up, as is a friend they aid early in the story, but the violence is all off-screen. Strong themes of friendship, respect, care for others, hard work, and persistence in following your dreams.

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A Day No Pigs Would Die

A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Robert Peck's semi-autobiographical novel of growing up in the Shaker Way in rural Vermont in 1940 is full of life lessons--some funny, some painful and violent, and some heart-wrenching.

Twelve-year-old Robert idolizes his father. Haven Peck may not know how to read or write, but he is wise in the ways of the natural world, a good neighbor, and a good man. He is steadfast in his determination to raise his son up to be a good man, too, and to that end teaches him how to take care of the animals, the farm, his mama, and his Aunt Carrie. On a farm, birth and death are everyday occurrences for which there is no escape. But in between the birthing and the dying is a whole lot of laughter, adventure, and love.

In my library, this book is shelved in the adult fiction section, but it really is a young adult novel for older teens. I picked it up because it was on a list of banned & challenged books, and now I'm wondering if it had been challenged in my district at some point in the past and moved from YA to adult fiction as a result?

For readers' advisors: language and setting doorways are primary, character secondary (there is not much in the way of plot--it's more vignettes). The descriptions of farm life are vivid and often brutal, particularly the rape of Robert's pig, the "weaseling" of the puppy, and the animal slaughtering. There are some swear words and some allusions to hanky panky happening down the road. The language is so evocative of a particular time & place it almost begs to be read aloud...which might be a good idea if you wish to read together and discuss as a family.

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In Mozart's Shadow: His Sister's Story

In Mozart's Shadow: His Sister's Story by Carolyn Meyer

My review

rating: 2 of 5 stars

I cannot believe I read the whole thing. It felt more like a recitation than a novel. I'd had high hopes for it, and I was interested in the subject matter (the story of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's older sister Nannerl), but...it was pretty boring. Flat. The most interesting part was when she was about 28 or 29 and fell in love with an older man whom her father refused to let her marry. Yes--her father was a wretchedly domineering man and totally wrong about, well, most everything. In fact, her father was an excellent example of how NOT to parent, although he at least did love her & her brother. The most interesting thing about the book was actually not IN the book but in my head as I pondered the effect--for good or for ill--bad parenting had on Mozart's legacy of music.

I spent most of this book praying that Nannerl would rebel against her father. Didn't happen, of course. She pleaded with him a few times--about being allowed to train in Italy as a musician (she was an outstanding pianist), about being allowed to travel with him & "Wolferl," and about being allowed to marry Armand d'Ippold, etc., but she never defied him. Mozart did rebel and was eventually allowed to marry the woman he chose. But no one else ever defied Leopold Mozart or bothered telling him the truth. Not that he would listen anyway. I wonder if he was truly this autocratic in real life, or if it's just Carolyn Meyer's vision of him?

This book is categorized as YA fiction, but I'm not certain many teenagers would like it. It wouldn't be among my top recommendations, at any rate. Not enough dialogue, character development, or even plot. I'm sure the chronology was pretty accurate, but the 30 or so years of Nannerl's life that it covers are almost entirely depressing.


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