The Best of Middle Grade Fiction: Front Desk by Kelly Yang [Review]

Format/source: Hardcover/library
Published: May 2018
Publisher: Arthur A. Levine
Length: 286 pages
Genre: Middle grade fiction
★★★★  

Based on the author’s experiences growing up as a Chinese immigrant in the 1990’s, Kelly Yang’s debut novel explores the stark trials 10 year old Mia Tang and her parents face while managing a hotel for a prejudiced landlord in California.

Front Desk takes place in California during the nineties. This time period had particular ramifications for Chinese immigrants with which I was unfamiliar. I learnt a lot from the author’s note, such as the fact that many families left China in the nineties thinking nothing was going to change in that country.

No group of Chinese immigrants before or since came with quite so little and gave up so much.

Kelly Yang, author’s note

Racism, crime, and poverty challenge Mia as she fights for the rights of her customers and for herself to get off the ‘rollercoaster of poverty’. Mia herself experiences racism from White hotel customers and classmates, as well as from Mr. Yao, the financially better off Chinese immigrant who owns the hotel and has an American born son Mia’s age.  She witnesses racism against Black people, including one of the hotel’s weekly residents. Mia fights for their rights as much as hers using quick thinking, defiance, and letter writing, despite her mother’s admonishments that Mia will never be good enough at English.

Mia navigates real world ‘adult’ problems including loan sharks, robberies, and no health insurance. Her story is not entirely as lighthearted or trivial as many other middle grade fiction novels. The cover and description of Front Desk didn’t really convey to me the depth of the challenges within. Front Desk‘s strength, however, is its portrayal of what it can be like to be a young immigrant like Mia, who has her own hopes and dreams for herself and her community, and does whatever she can to achieve those.  Mia’s friendships with her school friend Lupe, the hotel’s weekly residents, and the immigrants her parents shelter bring a strong thread of community solidarity to the story. 

Mia is a sweetheart. Her occasional naivety broke my heart (ex. “I have money! Let’s go to the hospital”) while her determined attitude made me smile. I’m not the type that gets weepy emotional at books but I teared up maybe four times while reading this due to Mia’s experiences and actions – for both happy and sad moments!

The Bottom Line

Briskly paced yet emotionally moving, Front Desk shines in its portrayal of a young girl unafraid of creating change. 

Further Reading

• Author website
• Read an excerpt
• Interview @ Post Magazine
• Review by Karen @Ms. Yingling Reads
• Review by Katie @ Read-at-Home Mom
• Review by Niranjana @ Asian Review of Books