First published 1991
Henrietta Rich packs her bags and leaves everything familiar behind. Her father has taken a teaching job in Beijing, and now she must navigate life as an American teenager in China. The bustling streets of New York give way to a completely different world where language, customs, and daily routines challenge everything she thought she knew about herself. Henrietta struggles to find her place between two cultures while her father settles into his new academic role. She must learn to communicate across barriers that go far deeper than language, forming new relationships while staying connected to who she was before. The year stretches ahead of her, full of unexpected discoveries about China, about her family, and about the person she is becoming. This is a story about the courage it takes to start over and the surprising ways we grow when everything around us changes.
Genres: american-fiction, coming-of-age, adolescence, china, 21st-century, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, found-family
Setting: Beijing, China, New York
Period: 21st-century
245 pages · Library Binding · HarperCollins