New From Here -- A Look at Life During the Pandemic through the Eyes of an Asian-American Kid

 

Disclosure: I was sent a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

The last few years have been tough on everyone. We have had a worldwide pandemic, racial riots and demonstrations, life basically shutting down and restarting and so much more. It has been hard on adults and imagine how hard it has been on kids. Then imagine how hard it is for Asian American kids. Today I'm going to share a middle grades novel that delves into just that. An Asian American family returns from Hong Kong just as the virus is beginning to spread out of China. The father however stays in Hong Kong to keep his job. The kids have to pick up their life here at a house they only usually visit in the summer. Plus, deal with the fact that anyone who looks Chinese isn't always treated well. The book is New from Here by Kelly Yang. 

Christmas during a World Pandemic

 

Merry Christmas to you and your family! This Christmas has been a strange one. It really hasn't felt like Christmas. We have had an unusually warm December. Then there is the threat of the new variant. I know people who traveled for the first time since December 2019 and others whose plans got completely ruined. This year seems even harder than last year when most of us were not vaccinated. Christmas 2020 we planned differently. We knew we needed to social distance and only have small gatherings. Our family split times with my parents. My sister who lives in Rhode Island, Hazel and I gathered at the Cape house and spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with my parents. My sister and nephew from North Carolina came after Christmas to celebrate with my parents so we could not cross contaminate each other. I have not seen my sister and nephew since July 2020 when we visited them at the Cape and only stayed outside with them. 

Review of Cleo Porter and the Body Electric -- where Fiction and Reality Meet

 

Disclosure: I was sent a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

The Great Depression, the Great War, the Great Recession and now the Great Separation. Today I get to share with you a new book that is amazing it was published this year and written before this year. As we are living through the Covid-19 Pandemic and thinking about wearing masks and social distancing, imagine if the pandemic was even worse and thus the Great Separation. Before we knew about Covid-19, Jake Burt wrote Cleo Porter and the Body Electric. And that is amazing!!

Twelve-year-old Cleo Porter lives in an apartment with her mother and father. The apartment has no doors or windows. It has a chute where drones drop off deliveries. The only human contact is with one another and everything else is done through simulation. In 2027 there had been an awful pandemic caused by Influenza D. The virus mutated with every person it moved to so there was no cure and it wiped out half the population. The solution was to lock everyone into apartments without doors or windows and have no outside physical contact. It has been decades since the last known case of Influenza D but the people live this way because it is safe. Cleo wants to be a drone surgeon like her mother. She has been studying to become a doctor from an early age and has a big test looming over her. But then something really strange happens. A medicine package gets delivered to their apartment with someone else's name. Everyone says it is impossible. The medicine is for brain swelling and it could be life or death. Cleo is worried for the unknown person. She feels the need to get the medicine to her, but how? The only way in and out of the apartment is the delivery chute. Cleo manages to get out with only machines to keep her company. She is off on an adventure that will change her whole life.

Can we start with how eye-opening this book is while living through a lesser pandemic? It puts our struggles into a different light. Social distancing and masks for a matter of months (or even a year) are nothing compared to never seeing the real sky and meeting people in person. There are messages throughout the book as well including from one of the people who chose not to be locked away. There are so many interesting depths to this book as well as questions that could be used for a class discussion. I put together some discussion questions for you. 

The story itself is intriguing and pulls the reader in. It flows and is suspenseful. You want to turn the page and continue reading to find out what happens next and to make sense of this new world. I hope you will check out this book. I know I told Hazel a bit about it and she wants to read it next!