The Year of the Book

The Year of the Book
Andrea Cheng
Abigail Halpin, Illustrator
Houghton Mifflin, 2012
Grades 3-5
Realistic Fiction/Friendship

Anna finds fourth grade a bit socially bewildering. Her former best friend Laura would rather hang out with popular girl Allison. Anna's only friend is the cheerful elderly crossing guard she chats with going to and coming from school every day. In order to survive the school day she retreats into her books, finding escape, comfort, and companionship within their pages. To make matters worse, Anna's mother is forcing her to attend Chinese school in order to learn the language of her heritage, a process which is both daunting and difficult. As the school year progresses, Laura eventually becomes tired of Allison's controlling nature and re-enters Anna's life. Laura's parents are in the midst of a nasty divorce and Anna learns to be a friend and begins to appreciate her family and see them in a new light. Chinese school begins to get better, as Anna learns to decipher the characters and makes a new friend. One day Anna's beloved crossing guard is not at his usual post. What could have happened to him? Anna takes it upon herself to find out, proving to be a loyal friend and maturing by learning to shift her focus off herself and on to those she cares about. The school years winds down on a happy note with Anna older, wiser, happier, and ready to tackle fifth grade.

I discovered this book while search for a title to launch my third/fourth grade book discussion group for the year. I like to start with a school story that is pretty simple and straight-forward and this would have worked out nicely. Because the book features two girls on the cover I was worried that it would scare the boys off and I choose The Mouse and the Motorcycle instead. That said, this book would have worked. Even though it does feature girls and the prerequisite friendship troubles, Anna is not particularly "girlie" and her story is universal. Bi-cultural kids will relate to Anna walking the line between being American and having Chinese roots and customs within her home. Non-bi-cultural kids will benefit by seeing what life is like for Anna and learning a bit about Chinese heritage. Sweet pencil drawings accompany the text and will help invite the target audience to keep turning pages. Many kids turn to books to escape life when it gets too complicated or noisy, including myself as a child and both of my daughters. I love Anna's reading choices and hope that readers may be inspired to crack into some of them. My only complaint is that I wish the author offered a bibliography of the books mentioned within the story at the end. Cheng does include a pronunciation guide of the Chinese words used within the story, which will be of interest to readers. I may have missed this book to launch the school year, but I may still use it for Chinese New Year, which is celebrated within the book. Readers who enjoyed Anna's story can read more about her adventures in four other titles, the most recent being The Year of the Garden, which was released this past April and published posthumously since Cheng passed away in 2015.