Maya and the Cotton Candy Boy

Gr 4—7—Maya Alazova loves her seventh-grade math class and admits that her face turns beet red when handsome Daniel Moran is assigned as her partner in language arts. While this novel is basically a coming-of-age story with the typical young romance and peer interactions, it also shows the struggles of an immigrant family and the harsh reality of making a life in a new country. Maya, along with her parents and younger brother, came to the United States from Kazakhstan in 1992 in hopes of finding security and opportunities. Maya has done well in her ESL classes and is now mainstreamed into the regular classroom. Some of her classmates are not as understanding as others and she often finds herself the object of jokes and ridicule. When she feels the pressure of school and family issues, she visualizes her home country and the dog she left behind, imagining him at her side and gaining inner strength to help her cope. Simple things like a field-trip permission form or a phone call from a boy take on different meanings when seen through the eyes of someone who has an entirely different cultural perspective. Maya tells her story well, and observant readers will come away with a better understanding of the sacrifices made by similar families. Hopefully they will gain some empathy for the next new kid in the classroom.—Cheryl Ashton, Amherst Public Library, OH