Front Desk ~ Kelly Yang
Happy Sunday! Riley and I are hunkering down and getting cozy before the big snow storm coming our way. I just finished Kelly Yang’s novel, Front Desk, and I want to shout out to everyone from the rooftops: Run out now! Get this book! Not only was it funny, inspiring, heartwarming, and heart-wrenching, it also opened my eyes to the experiences of immigrants trying to make a life for themselves in this country.
Protagonist, Mia Tang, is like many other 10-year-old girls: She wants to fit in at school, her mom gets on her nerves at times, and she hates the class bully. But there is something very different about Mia. When she’s not at school, she’s working at the front desk of the motel her parents manage. She is extremely poor and doesn’t enjoy the childhood that most of her peers experience.
Despite the tremendous challenges her family faces, Mia’s strength, courage, determination, and positive outlook inspire readers. And most interesting to me was that the novel is based on true events from the author’s life. Kelly Yang worked in California motels with her parents throughout her childhood, and she experienced discrimination, frustration, and extreme hardship, but she went on to attend UC Berkeley at 13 years old and then attended Harvard Law School!
Her character, Mia Tang, will make our students realize their own potential and power, and will give a voice to immigrants everywhere. I highly recommend this novel to any student grade 5+. Buy it here!
Maturity: 1/4This novel’s content is appropriate for most readers 10+. Readers do learn about loan sharks, and the violence that is often associated with them. Additionally, at two points in the novel, Mia and her mother experience violence from people trying to rent in the motel and steal from the cash register.
Pages: 286
Lexile: 640L
Lexile is a score that helps educators and parents match students with an appropriate text. A Lexile score is a measure of both a child’s reading ability and a text difficulty. However, Lexile does not take into account the content of a novel. So, pairing readers with a text is a complex process, and knowledge of a novel’s themes and plot is necessary to make a high-quality recommendation.If you are curious about the grade-level equivalent to Lexile scores, check out the conversion charthere!
Book Talk It!
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Grab my book talk slideshow! It includes everything you need to captivate your students. I use these book talks in my classroom every week, and they are the #1 way I engage my students in reading! ♥ RileyReadsYA ♥