Searching for Sylvie Lee by Jean Kwok

SEARCHING FOR SYLVIE LEE by Jean Kwok (Girl in Translation) is her latest, much anticipated novel about two sisters born after their parents immigrated to New York City from China.  Sylvie is the elder sister by several years and she was actually raised by cousins and a grandmother in the Netherlands until age nine when she joined the family in New York, helping care for Amy, a then-two-year-old toddler. 

Now an adult, Sylvie returns to the Netherlands to be with her terminally ill Grandmother, but disappears after her Grandmother’s death. That prompts Amy to fly to Europe, but the police are relatively unconcerned, the cousins are kind of mean and uncaring and Amy struggles with language differences as she tries to find Sylvie.  

There’s some menacing suspense in the air and obvious questions about whom Amy should trust, but the story moves slowly.  Flashbacks told by Sylvie alternate with Amy’s recounting of her search and with their mother’s thoughts. SEARCHING FOR SYLVIE LEE uses family relationships, secrets, and assumptions (including some racial and immigrant stereotypes) to show how little we really know each other. Kwok’s novel received a starred review from Booklist. 

The Downstairs Girl by Stacey Lee

THE DOWNSTAIRS GIRL by Stacey Lee (Under a Painted Sky and Outrun the Moon) is a work of historical fiction in which readers definitely will experience 1890 Atlanta with all of its gender, race, and social class biases. The main character is Jo Kuan, a seventeen-year-old Chinese orphan who lives with her guardian, Old Gin, in a basement hideout formerly on the underground railroad. She wants to be a milliner and has obvious skills until she is abruptly dismissed for making some of the white patrons “uncomfortable.” Next, it is on to being a lady’s maid for a rather spoiled young woman at an estate where Old Gin helps to care for the horses. In an effort to save a local newspaper, she also starts writing an advice column, signing her letters as Miss Sweetie and cleverly tackling questions related to beauty, social mores and "newfangled machinery" like bicycles. Even though THE DOWNSTAIRS GIRL is set in a time and place with which our students will have little affinity, I think they will readily relate to Jo’s spirit – she is optimistic, resourceful and daring – a real “saucebox” with an independent streak. And the cover is beautiful and eye catching!  

THE DOWNSTAIRS GIRL received multiple starred reviews (Booklist, Bulletin for the Center of Children’s Books, Kirkus, Publishers Weekly and School Library Journal) – expect this title to appear on award lists, too.

Love and other Consolation Prizes by Jamie Ford

LOVE AND OTHER CONSOLATION PRIZES by New York Times bestselling author Jamie Ford (also wrote Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet) is set primarily in Seattle and based on a true story. It begins near the turn of the century in China where a poor, half-Caucasian boy is sent by his Chinese mother to America and ends in 1962 where the now aged man reflects on his life.  In between, there is the 1909 World’s Fair (or Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition) where by then 12-year-old orphan Ernest Young is raffled off and goes home with Madam Flora to her brothel.  As the new houseboy, he forms a family of sorts with Maisie, the madam’s daughter, and with Fahn, the Japanese kitchen maid. Ford then moves back and forth in time to relate a complicated love story that spans more than 50 years – all the way to the Century 21 Exposition, another World’s Fair that was held in Seattle from August to October, 1962.

LOVE AND OTHER CONSOLATION PRIZES explores the exploitation of Asian immigrants, especially children, prostitution, temperance, women’s rights and political corruption. In his author’s notes, Ford asks, “Why did frontier cities in the West have the most successful suffrage campaigns while also being hot beds for vice?” That question, or the simpler contrasts between the social mores of the two time periods, will certainly intrigue readers looking for a potential Junior Theme idea.  

For another tragic story about orphans, see BEFORE WE WERE YOURS by Lisa Wingate.