First published 2021
Thirteen-year-old Mei works at a Sierra Nevada logging camp in 1885, where she spends her days cutting timber and her evenings spinning tales. She transforms the familiar stories of Paul Bunyan into adventures starring Po Pan Yin, or Auntie Po, a powerful Chinese matriarch who can fell entire forests. Mei finds comfort in these reimagined myths as she navigates the dangerous tensions following the Chinese Exclusion Act. Her friendship with Bee, the camp foreman's daughter, deepens into something more complicated as romantic feelings emerge. The stories of Auntie Po become Mei's anchor in a world where Chinese workers face hostility and exclusion. She must balance her loyalty to her community's traditions with her desire to claim her own space in America. Through her retelling of these myths, Mei discovers who has the right to shape the stories that define a nation.
Genres: american-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, coming-of-age, 19th-century, asian-american
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking, whimsical
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, found-family, retelling
Setting: America, Sierra Nevada
Period: 1885
304 pages · Hardcover · Kokila