Cybils Award Reviews: Front Desk || Harbor Me

I was a judge for the Cybils Award this year, so I thought it’d be fun to review the middlegrade realistic fiction finalists. Here are two short finalists. If you’re looking for a quick read, check these out.

Front Desk by Kelly Yang

Genre: Middlegrade historical fiction

Pages: 298

Publication date: May 2018

Content warning: Racism, poverty, injury, theft, bullying, mistreatment of employees, homelessness

Mia Tang has a lot of secrets.

Number 1: She lives in a motel, not a big house. Every day, while her immigrant parents clean the rooms, ten-year-old Mia manages the front desk of the Calivista Motel and tends to its guests.

Number 2: Her parents hide immigrants. And if the mean motel owner, Mr. Yao, finds out they've been letting them stay in the empty rooms for free, the Tangs will be doomed.

Number 3: She wants to be a writer. But how can she when her mom thinks she should stick to math because English is not her first language?

It will take all of Mia's courage, kindness, and hard work to get through this year. Will she be able to hold on to her job, help the immigrants and guests, escape Mr. Yao, and go for her dreams?

Likes: This book is an #OwnVoices novel based on the author’s experience as a Chinese immigrant whose parents ran a motel. The author actually spent part of her childhood working at the front desk. The book’s main character, Mia, is a likeable child. She’s resourceful and independent and puts up with a lot of nonsense from adults. At a young age, she has to face racism, poverty, crime, homelessness, and her parents being exploited by their bosses. Even though this novel’s plot is relentlessly depressing at times, you get the sense that Mia will be okay. Since she solves every problem that comes at her, she’ll probably find her way off the “poverty rollercoaster” eventually. Mia’s family’s situation is bleak, but it never feels completely hopeless.

Mia’s parents are loving, but not perfect. There are a lot of conflicts between characters in this story. The most unique one is between Mia and her mother. Mia loves to write. Her mother thinks Mia will never be good at “native” English and wants her to focus on math instead. Parental expectations are a common theme in middlegrade books, but I haven’t seen this exact conflict before. I love that Mia keeps working on her writing, even when her mother disapproves. She’s definitely a strong-willed child. I like that the reader can see her English improve over the course of the novel. All of that practice is paying off.

Dislikes: Honestly, I struggled with this book. If I wasn’t judging it for the Cybils Awards, I probably wouldn’t have finished it. I found the structure repetitive and tedious. It’s like the author made a list of everything that could go wrong for a Chinese family running a motel and gave Mia 10 pages to fix each problem. She solves a lot of the problems by writing letters. I picked up on the formula quickly and got bored. This is a children’s book, so maybe kids will have more patience with the repetition than I did.

I don’t want to spoil anything, but I didn’t believe the ending. I was happy that something had finally gone right for Mia’s family, but why couldn’t something go realistically right?

I also had to keep reminding myself that Mia is supposed to be 10. She comes across as a much older character. Since she starts the book as a strong, capable child, she doesn’t really grow up over the course of the story. Her character is static. I didn’t feel like she learned much from her nonstop problem-solving because she already knows everything.

The Bottom Line: I appreciate that it’s #OwnVoices and shines light on immigrant experiences, but it’s definitely not a “me” book. I lost patience with the repetitiveness.

Harbor Me by Jacqueline Woodson

Genre: Middlegrade contemporary fiction

Pages: 192

Publication date: August 2018

Content warning: Racism, death, long-term incarceration, poverty, bullying, immigration problems, school/learning difficulties

It all starts when six kids have to meet for a weekly chat—by themselves, with no adults to listen in. There, in the room they soon dub the ARTT Room (short for "A Room to Talk"), they discover it's safe to talk about what's bothering them—everything from Esteban's father's deportation and Haley's father's incarceration to Amari's fears of racial profiling and Ashton's adjustment to his changing family fortunes. When the six are together, they can express the feelings and fears they have to hide from the rest of the world. And together, they can grow braver and more ready for the rest of their lives.

Likes: Jacqueline Woodson is a legend. Seriously, she’s such a good writer. How is one person this talented? It’s not fair to the rest of humanity. She’s able to get right to the heart of a subject and explore it in thought-provoking ways. This novel is short, memorable, and powerful. I was still thinking about it long after I finished it.

I was excited when I saw that the characters are “special ed.” kids. I was in “special” classes during elementary school, and I don’t remember ever reading a book about kids like me. I encountered a lot of gifted characters in my childhood reading, but never any slow characters. This novel gets bonus points from me for starring fidgety kids who are too trapped inside their own heads to pay attention in class.

The author did a brilliant job of choosing timely subjects and discussing them in ways that kids can understand. In their “Room To Talk,” the characters discuss police brutality, white privilege, immigration, money, and incarceration. Any kid who pays attention to world events would probably have questions about those topics. The characters have a lot of questions, too.

I love that the story focuses on listening. Sometimes people get so caught up in their own problems that they shut out everybody else. The kids learn to listen and support each other. Their problems become less overwhelming when they share them. They work together to understand what’s going on in their friends’ lives and to find solutions. Asking for help isn’t shameful. Everybody needs assistance sometimes.

Dislikes: I’ve read a few of Jacqueline Woodson’s books, and they always remind me of books that would be assigned by a teacher. The poetic writing style is a bit advanced for the target audience. This might be an interesting novel to discuss in class, but I’m not sure how many kids would pick it up on their own and enjoy it. It’s very quiet. It has a lot of exposition and not much action. The characters spend most of the book sitting in a room, talking about their problems. Some young readers might get bored with the tragic lack of plot.

Also, would kids be allowed to sit in a room unsupervised during school? That seems like it could lead to some serious shenanigans.

The Bottom Line: I liked it because I’m an adult who appreciates a well-written book. I don’t think the plot would have held my attention when I was a kid.