Mia Tang's sixth grade year complicated by a hard-to-please teacher, financial setbacks at her parents' motel, and a looming immigration law that threatens to derail her entire life.

Informed that an unknown cousin is in jail, Chinese-American private detective Lydia Chin and her partner, Bill Smith, travel to the Mississippi Delta, where they confront river-levee disputes, computer scams, and questions about her cousin's innocence.

This moving ode to the immigrant experience, as well as a manifesto of self-love for Chinese American children, is a jubilant celebration of accepting who you are.

"In 1980s New York, half-Chinese, half-Jewish Alma, whose life is a series of halfways, uses her Walkman to get through the challenges thrown her way until she is ready to press play on the soundtrack of her life"--

Embarrassed about gathering watercress from a roadside ditch, a girl learns to appreciate her Chinese heritage after learning why the plant is so important to her parents.

Alternates three interrelated stories about the problems of young Chinese Americans trying to participate in the popular culture. Presented in comic book format.

"Sixth grader Andy Zhou grapples with fitting in, befriends a bully, drifts apart from his childhood best friend, and gets to know grandparents who have just moved from Shanghai to live with his family"--

A young girl helps her grandmother with preparations for the traditional Chinese celebration to welcome her new baby brother.

In the mid-nineteenth century, teenager Lee Chin and his father leave China for California to work on the transcontinental railroad, where Lee defies his father's wishes and saves money to free his younger sister from slavery in China, then brings her to join him in beginning a new life in America. Includes historical note about the Chinese who helped build the transcontinental railroad.