{"id":5759,"date":"2018-10-05T23:08:27","date_gmt":"2018-10-05T13:08:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/?p=5759"},"modified":"2020-12-23T21:52:15","modified_gmt":"2020-12-23T10:52:15","slug":"front-desk-by-kelly-yang","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/2018\/10\/front-desk-by-kelly-yang\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Front Desk\u2019 by Kelly Yang"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cI used to think being successful meant having enough to eat, but now that I was getting free lunch at school, I wondered if I should set my standards higher.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"'Front<\/p>\n

It\u2019s 1993 and ten-year-old Mia Tang has migrated from China to America with her parents. They\u2019d hoped for a better life in the Land of the Free, but they\u2019re reduced to living out of their car and taking whatever badly-paid casual jobs they can find. It seems like a miracle when Mr Yao, the owner of a motel near Disneyland, offers them accommodation plus wages if they\u2019ll manage his motel. There\u2019s even a swimming pool! But \u2018coal-hearted\u2019 Mr Yao exploits them mercilessly, penalising them for infractions of his ever-changing rules (and he definitely<\/em> doesn\u2019t want Mia or anyone else actually swimming in the pool). Mia\u2019s parents exhaust themselves with the constant cleaning, laundry and repairs, while Mia appoints herself front desk manager, dealing with missing keys, stolen cars and belligerent drunks. Things are even worse for her at school, where her teacher criticises her English and Mr Yao\u2019s nasty son encourages the class to laugh at Mia\u2019s cheap clothes. Mia\u2019s only schoolfriend Lupe, a Mexican immigrant, is convinced the two of them are stuck on a \u201crollercoaster\u201d of poverty that they can never get off, but Mia, with the help of the motel\u2019s permanent residents, finds a way to improve the lives of her family and friends.<\/p>\n

The author does an admirable job of addressing some heavy topics \u2013 including racism, immigration and poverty \u2013 in an accessible way for middle-grade readers, but Front Desk<\/em><\/a> is also an engrossing and entertaining story featuring a smart, creative heroine. Mia is far from perfect, but she has a good heart and she learns from her many mistakes. The other characters are similarly nuanced. Mia\u2019s mother loves her daughter and wants the best for her, but her ambition combined with their desperate circumstances can make her ruthless. Mia\u2019s father is more sympathetic, but he’s fairly inept. Mia\u2019s teacher, though well-meaning, is clueless about Mia\u2019s struggles. Both Mr Yao and a Chinese-American security guard hold appallingly racist views about African-Americans. And even Mr Yao\u2019s horrible son, bullied by his own father, finds the courage to be compassionate when Mia needs his help.<\/p>\n

\"'FrontIt\u2019s especially nice that books and writing (and an enormous thesaurus) are the key to most of Mia\u2019s eventual successes, whether she\u2019s penning a threatening letter to the exploitative boss of an illegal immigrant friend or she’s writing down her family\u2019s story to win a class competition. I must admit that the novel\u2019s conclusion seemed implausibly optimistic and saccharine to me, but by that stage, I was so happy to see good triumph over evil that I didn\u2019t mind too<\/em> much. The author, Kelly Yang<\/a>, provides useful notes at the end of the book, explaining that Mia\u2019s story is based on her own experiences helping her migrant parents run motels in California in the 1980s and 1990s. She notes that these immigrants were \u201cparticularly vulnerable to exploitation and hardship. No group of Chinese immigrants before or since came with quite so little and gave up quite so much.\u201d Front Desk<\/em> offers a strong argument in favour of #OwnVoices<\/a>, because it rings with authenticity. Its messages about immigration and racism are sadly relevant today, but don\u2019t be put off, thinking this is all Serious Discussion of Worthy Issues \u2013 it\u2019s simply a good, fun, heartwarming story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cI used to think being successful meant having enough to eat, but now that I was getting free lunch at school, I wondered if I should set my standards higher.\u201d It\u2019s 1993 and ten-year-old Mia Tang has migrated from China to America with her parents. They\u2019d hoped for a better life in the Land of … Continue reading \u2018Front Desk\u2019 by Kelly Yang<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,293,18],"tags":[274],"class_list":["post-5759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-childrens-books","category-my-favourite-books","tag-kelly-yang"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5759"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5759\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5766,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5759\/revisions\/5766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}