growing with the times

It’s 1995, and Mia Tang is looking forward to her family’s six week vacation in China. It will be the first time since they moved to America that they are going back, and Mia can’t wait to see her family again. Here in America, she helps her parents and friends with the Calivista Motel, which they own. And now that they have found some success with the motel, they have set aside the money to travel back and see Mia’s grandparents, aunts, uncles, and grandparents.

But before she leaves, she has plans to meet her two set friends for a movie and dinner. Toy Story is in the theater, and Mia is excited to see it with Lupe and Jason. Lupe is a friend from school and her partner running the front desk at the motel after school. Jason was a bully to Mia when they first met, but they have since become friends. But at the last minute Lupe calls Mia to tell her that se can’t make it. She got moved ahead in math and English at school, and she is having a lot of trouble keeping up with her work. So it will be just Mia and Jason at the movie and the dinner.

Mia loves the movie, but she’s less certain about dinner. Jason wants to try a new chain restaurant that’s opened up, but Mia realizes that the restaurant is where her favorite congee shop was, and she’s sad at its closing. But she focuses on her meal, which is delicious, and on her conversation with Jason. But when e suddenly reaches over and kisses her, she is more than surprised. She doesn’t know what to do or say. But she does know that doesn’t feel that way towards Jason.

The next day, Mia and her parents and their friend Hank travel to China. Mia is super excited to see her extended family, but she and her parents can’t believe how much China has changed in the years they’ve been gone. There are cars instead of bikes, there are skyscrapers taking over the horizon, and chain restaurants are popping up. But Mia is still able to enjoy time with her family and seeing the city with Hank, who keeps getting mistaken for Samuel L. Jackson.

But Mia has a secret. After she got an article published in a California newspaper, she’s been sending it to other newspapers across the country, to see if she can get published again. She has dozens of rejections. She hasn’t told her parents or her friends about that yet. She was waiting until she got published again. But when she showed her article to her grandfather, he loves her writing and sends it to an editor of a Chinese newspaper that goes out to middle school kids. And the editor there loves it. He wants Mia to write her own column about living in America for his Chinese students, and she agrees. She is so excited to be published again!

But after six weeks, it’s time to go back home, and as soon as they show up at the motel again, they are crushed. Two local motels have combined and been redone, so the Calivista is now against a giant motel advertising really low prices. They’ve already lost a lot of business, and it will take all their creative ideas to keep the Calivista open.

Also, Mia has six weeks’ worth of homework to catch up on, as well as her friendships with Lupe and Jason to work on. Plus, she’s still writing her column for the newspaper in China and she has a extra writing project in her English class where she gets paired up with De-Shawn, and they talk about starting a student newspaper at the school. But will the Tangs be able to save their motel and stay in California to pursue their American dreams? Or will they get forced out by another big chain?

Room to Dream is the third book in the series that author Kelly Yang started with Front Desk. These books about an immigrant family trying to find a better life in 1990s California are warm and inspiring. Based on Yang’s own experience as a kid, there is an authenticity to Mia’s voice and in her unrelenting enthusiasm.

Room to Dream is a fun exploration of life in an immigrant family. It’s a fantastic portrait of America and China in the 1990s, the changes that they were going through and how those changes affected the citizens. However, this book has a lot going on. The trip to China could have easily been the entire book; the same could be said of the motel fighting against the giant Mega Motel that opened across the street.

There are topics of bullying and respecting boundaries in relationships as well as finding a way to support a friend even if you’re jealous of their success or wanting them to step back to spend more time with you. It will take a strong reader to be able to keep up with Mia, but the story really draws you in and does its best to keep you grounded through all the story lines. It’s a lovely read, and I hope lots of middle schoolers spend some time with Mia in her world.

Galleys for Room to Dream were provided by Scholastic Press, with many thanks.