‘A sensitively handled rites-of-passage account … has the unmistakable ring of authenticity’ Metro

Kimberly Chang and her mother move from Hong Kong to New York. A new life awaits them

making a new home in a new country. But all they can afford is a verminous, broken-windowed Brooklyn apartment. The only heating is an unreliable oven. They are deep in debt.

And neither speaks one word of English.

Yet there is hope. Eleven-year-old Kim goes to school. And though cut off by an alien language and culture

and forced by poverty to work nights in a sweatshop

she finds the classroom challenges liberating. In books and learning she’ll be saved. But can Kim successfully turn the lost girl from Hong Kong into a happy American woman? And should she?

Jean Kwok’s powerful and moving tale of hardship and triumph, of heartbreak and love, speaks of all that gets lost in translation.

‘A truly amazing

story that’ll leave you full of admiration and affection for the characters’ Easy Living

‘A classic and moving immigration story’ Red