Honeysuckle house / Andrea Cheng.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Alienation, longing, prejudice, and cultural difference is touched on in this immigrant story told in the voices of two ten-year-old girls. Sarah and Tina are fourth graders. The most important thing in the world to Sarah -- American-born Chinese -- is the recent departure of her best friend, Victoria. She misses her terribly. Tina has just recently moved to Cincinnati from Shanghai, and is trying to make sense of a whole new world -- pretty much clueless to all the things Sarahis hip to.

The two girls are paired together in school, as if Asian appearance were proof of parallel lives and experience. ("I don't speak Chinese," Sarah keeps having to explain.) It's the daily, common stuff of childhood intrigue that finally manages to connect their stories and forge a friendship. A whole constellation of adult concerns swirl around them -- green card worries, assimilation, absent fathers, family tensions -- but Andrea Cheng remains true to the heart and voice and vision oftwo ten-year-old girls, in a story which blends tears and games, drama and play.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

Alternating between the perspectives of two fourth-grade narrators, Cheng (Marika) proves herself a gifted and sympathetic observer of middle-graders' conflicts and concerns. In the opening chapter, Sarah tries to make sense of the news from her best friend and next-door neighbor, Victoria, that she is moving. Victoria's mother isn't reliable, there's no moving van, and Victoria doesn't know where they're going. But that afternoon Victoria and her mom leave, with some but not all of their things. At school Sarah feels bereaved and alarmed when Victoria's seat gets filled by a new girl, Tina, just arrived from China. Sarah, who is Chinese-American, steels herself: "I'll have to tell everyone all over again I don't speak Chinese." Tina brings her voice to the next chapter, describing her trip from Shanghai to join her parents in America. Cheng uses perceptive details to highlight the enormity of the adjustments Tina must make. Separated from her mother for more than a year, Tina almost doesn't recognize her because her smell has changed her soft perfume has been replaced by an alien scent. "When I smelled the sharp soap," Tina says, she finally understands why her grandmother has told her to be brave. Both Tina and Sarah must come to terms with classmates and teachers who assume that their Chinese facial features confer automatic intimacy and affection, allowing Cheng to make important points about assimilation and prejudice. Eventually, however, the mystery of Victoria's disappearance opens a path for the two girls to channel their feelings of loss and, in the process, create a genuine friendship. Ages 10-up. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

School Library Journal Review

Gr 3-5-The honeysuckle house (a spot under a large honeysuckle bush) is where fourth-grader Sarah, a Chinese-American girl, plays with her friend Victoria until the girl suddenly moves away. Sarah's story is juxtaposed with her classmate Ting's, a new immigrant from China. Told in first person in alternating chapters, the narratives balance well between large issues (like Ting's parents' employment and legal problems and Victoria's abrupt departure) and more intimate ones (people assume that Sarah can speak Chinese, and Ting has to adjust to all of the new smells in America). With a smoothly drawn and interesting plot, strong characters, and graceful writing, the story has more immediacy than much realistic contemporary fiction. There are some truly memorable scenes, such as when Ting and Sarah explore Victoria's deserted house, and when Ting breaks a vase in the house where her mother cleans. With a strong social conscience behind it as well, this absorbing novel has a lot going for it.-Lauralyn Persson, Wilmette Public Library, IL (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Booklist Review

Gr. 4-7. Born in Cincinnati, Sarah, 10, is Chinese American, but she doesn't speak Chinese and doesn't want to. She's furious when the teacher expects her to take care of the new kid, Ting, who has just arrived from Shanghai. Ting, who does know a little English, wishes she were back home, far from people who mock her accent and appearance. Told in the girls' alternating voices, this novel is certainly a friendship story, but it moves beyond the usual immigration-assimilation scenario to show the cultural differences across generations and inside families. Ting's dad, desperate for his green card, hates needing Ting's help (Just because you know English, do you think you know more than your father? ), and the parents' tensions are always on the edge of each girl's personal conflict. Although there's no neat resolution, the girls do become friends, and Sarah enjoys learning some Chinese, even as she chops off her long, straight black hair. Many readers, and not only new immigrants, will recognize the truth about how hard it is to fit in. --Hazel Rochman Copyright 2004 Booklist

Horn Book Review

(Intermediate) When Chinese-American Sarah's fourth-grade teacher assigns her to befriend Tina, newly arrived in Cincinnati from China, Sarah resents the assumption that a similar heritage will make them friends. Indeed, the girls' alternating narratives dramatize how different their concerns are. Sarah is bereft at the abrupt moving-away of her friend Victoria and at odds with her parents (she resents Dad's business travel, while Mom's new stay-at-home role intrudes on her freedom). Tina, on the other hand, must rediscover her parents after years of living with more indulgent relatives. The girls do become friends despite adult efforts to make them so: Tina's English, which at first ""isn't good enough to pretend anything,"" improves quickly, and the two play in the ""honeysuckle house"" in Sarah's yard. There's no great drama here, and much is realistically open-ended: Sarah never learns where Victoria has gone; Tina's father's green card remains pending. What distinguishes the story are the judiciously selected actions and details that give its characters vivid individuality--how insecurity can be expressed as anger, the way subtle racism rankles, the little things that unify a family. Equally strong as a story of friendship, of three contrasting families, and of the immigrant experience. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.

Kirkus Book Review

This deft character-driven story about two ten-year-old girls rings with clarity. Sarah's devastated when her best friend Victoria suddenly and mysteriously moves away--where has she gone? Will she be back? The honeysuckle house in the backyard, where they played daily, is bereft without her. Slowly, Sarah gets to know Ting, a girl at school who's just arrived from Shanghai. In this Cincinnati where "China, Japan, Africa" are "all the same. . . . Faraway places with funny-looking people," teachers confuse Sarah and Ting, never absorbing that Sarah is Chinese-American and doesn't even speak Chinese. Kids tease and isolate Ting. Chapters vary Sarah and Ting's distinct points of view as the two creep toward a friendship that, rather than forgetting Victoria, honors and includes her even in her absence. This is really the story of all three girls, as well as their families, each with its own pains and strengths. Honesty and subtlety co-exist in Cheng's thoughtful, never-didactic writing. (Fiction. 9-12) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.