Thirteen-year-old Mai has spent most of her entire life living with her grandmother in a Hmong refugee camp in Thailand. Life in the camp is hard, and she dreams of joining her uncle and cousins who immigrated to Providence, Rhode Island, five years earlier. When she and her grandmother finally get the chance to resettle in the United States, they find that life in America has its own challenges: there’s a new language, a new way of life, and it’s unbearably cold. Grandma has such a difficult time adjusting and is so terribly homesick that Mai feels obliged to take care of her as best she can. One of the ways she can do this is by helping stitch and then sell pan dau storycloths and other traditional Hmong embroidery, at which both Mai and her grandmother are skilled. Mai has her older cousins, Heather and Lisa, to teach her the customs of American teen life, but she soon begins to suspect that Heather’s disrespect for her elders goes way beyond what’s acceptable for American teens. Based on extensive research, Pegi Deitz Shea has written an absorbing coming-of-age story that deals realistically with the hardships faced by Hmong refugees both in Thailand and in the United States. (Ages 12–14)

For the Hmong people living in overcrowded refugee camps in Thailand, America is a dream: the land of peace and plenty. In 1995, ten years after their arrival at the camp, thirteen-year-old Mai Yang and her grandmother are about to experience that dream. In America, they will be reunited with their only remaining relatives, Mai’s uncle and his family. They will discover the privileges of their new life: medical care, abundant food, and an apartment all their own. But Mai will also feel the pressures of life as a teenager. Her cousins, now known as Heather and Lisa, try to help Mai look less like a refugee, but following them means disobeying Grandma and Uncle. From showers and smoke alarms to shopping, dating, and her family’s new religion, Mai finds life in America complicated and confusing. Ultimately, she will have to reconcile the old ways with the new, and decide for herself the kind of woman she wants to be. This archetypal immigrant story introduces readers to the fascinating Hmong culture and offers a unique outsider’s perspective on our own.