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Girl in Translation
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Author:
Published:
Penguin Publishing Group 2010
Accelerated Reader:
IL: UG - BL: 5.7 - AR Pts: 13
Lexile measure:
840L
Status:
Checked Out
Description
From the author of Searching for Sylvie Lee, the iconic, New York Times-bestselling debut novel that introduced an important Chinese-American voice with an inspiring story of an immigrant girl forced to choose between two worlds and two futures. 
When Kimberly Chang and her mother emigrate from Hong Kong to Brooklyn squalor, she quickly begins a secret double life: exceptional schoolgirl during the day, Chinatown sweatshop worker in the evenings. Disguising the more difficult truths of her life—like the staggering degree of her poverty, the weight of her family's future resting on her shoulders, or her secret love for a factory boy who shares none of her talent or ambition—Kimberly learns to constantly translate not just her language but herself back and forth between the worlds she straddles.
Through Kimberly's story, author Jean Kwok, who also emigrated from Hong Kong as a young girl, brings to the page the lives of countless immigrants who are caught between the pressure to succeed in America, their duty to their family, and their own personal desires, exposing a world that we rarely hear about. Written in an indelible voice that dramatizes the tensions of an immigrant girl growing up between two cultures, surrounded by a language and world only half understood, Girl in Translation is an unforgettable and classic novel of an American immigrant-a moving tale of hardship and triumph, heartbreak and love, and all that gets lost in translation.
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Format:
Adobe EPUB eBook, Kindle Book, OverDrive Read
Street Date:
4/29/2010
Language:
English
ISBN:
9781101187487
ASIN:
B003NX7O9Q
Accelerated Reader:
UG
Level 5.7, 13 Points
Lexile measure:
840
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Citations
APA Citation (style guide)

Jean Kwok. (2010). Girl in Translation. Penguin Publishing Group.

Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)

Jean Kwok. 2010. Girl in Translation. Penguin Publishing Group.

Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)

Jean Kwok, Girl in Translation. Penguin Publishing Group, 2010.

MLA Citation (style guide)

Jean Kwok. Girl in Translation. Penguin Publishing Group, 2010.

Note! Citation formats are based on standards as of July 2022. Citations contain only title, author, edition, publisher, and year published. Citations should be used as a guideline and should be double checked for accuracy.
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Date Added:
Jun 12, 2018 19:52:35
Date Updated:
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keywords
      • value: Education
      • value: family
      • value: literary fiction
      • value: Chinatown
      • value: translation
      • value: Historical
      • value: Chinese Americans
      • value: brooklyn
      • value: contemporary fiction
      • value: mothers
      • value: asian american
      • value: Coming of age
      • value: Young Adult
      • value: Asian
      • value: China
      • value: Historical Fiction
      • value: womens fiction
      • value: Daughters
      • value: Contemporary
      • value: Poverty
      • value: new york city
      • value: school
      • value: Hong Kong
      • value: Chinese American
      • value: realistic fiction
      • value: chinese immigrants
      • value: required reading
      • value: book club recommendations
      • value: asian fiction
      • value: historical fiction books
      • value: book club books
      • value: adoption books for adoptive parents
      • value: jean kwok books
      • value: searching for sylvie lee
creators
      • role: Author
      • fileAs: Kwok, Jean
      • name: Jean Kwok
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publishDate
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title
Girl in Translation
fullDescription
From the author of Searching for Sylvie Lee, the iconic, New York Times-bestselling debut novel that introduced an important Chinese-American voice with an inspiring story of an immigrant girl forced to choose between two worlds and two futures. 
When Kimberly Chang and her mother emigrate from Hong Kong to Brooklyn squalor, she quickly begins a secret double life: exceptional schoolgirl during the day, Chinatown sweatshop worker in the evenings. Disguising the more difficult truths of her life—like the staggering degree of her poverty, the weight of her family's future resting on her shoulders, or her secret love for a factory boy who shares none of her talent or ambition—Kimberly learns to constantly translate not just her language but herself back and forth between the worlds she straddles.
Through Kimberly's story, author Jean Kwok, who also emigrated from Hong Kong as a young girl, brings to the page the lives of countless immigrants who are caught between the pressure to succeed in America, their duty to their family, and their own personal desires, exposing a world that we rarely hear about. Written in an indelible voice that dramatizes the tensions of an immigrant girl growing up between two cultures, surrounded by a language and world only half understood, Girl in Translation is an unforgettable and classic novel of an American immigrant-a moving tale of hardship and triumph, heartbreak and love, and all that gets lost in translation.
gradeLevels
      • value: Grade 4
      • value: Grade 5
reviews
      • premium: True
      • source: Publisher's Weekly
      • content:

        March 15, 2010
        A resolute yet naïve Chinese girl confronts poverty and culture shock with equal zeal when she and her mother immigrate to Brooklyn in Kwok's affecting coming-of-age debut. Ah-Kim Chang, or Kimberly as she is known in the U.S., had been a promising student in Hong Kong when her father died. Now she and her mother are indebted to Kimberly's Aunt Paula, who funded their trip from Hong Kong, so they dutifully work for her in a Chinatown clothing factory where they earn barely enough to keep them alive. Despite this, and living in a condemned apartment that is without heat and full of roaches, Kimberly excels at school, perfects her English, and is eventually admitted to an elite, private high school. An obvious outsider, without money for new clothes or undergarments, she deals with added social pressures, only to be comforted by an understanding best friend, Annette, who lends her makeup and hands out American advice. A love interest at the factory leads to a surprising plot line, but it is the portrayal of Kimberly's relationship with her mother that makes this more than just another immigrant story.

      • premium: True
      • source: Kirkus
      • content:

        March 15, 2010
        An iteration of a quintessential American myth—immigrants come to America and experience economic exploitation and the seamy side of urban life, but education and pluck ultimately lead to success.

        Twelve-year-old Kimberly Chang and her mother emigrate from Hong Kong and feel lucky to get out before the transfer to the Chinese. Because Mrs. Chang's older sister owns a garment factory in Brooklyn, she offers Kimberly's mother—and even Kimberly—a"good job" bagging skirts as well as a place to live in a nearby apartment. Of course, both of these"gifts" turn out to be exploitative, for to make ends meet Mrs. Chang winds up working 12-hour–plus days in the factory. Kimberly joins her after school hours in this hot and exhausting labor, and the apartment is teeming with roaches. In addition, the start to Kimberly's sixth-grade year is far from prepossessing, for she's shy and speaks almost no English, but she turns out to be a whiz at math and science. The following year she earns a scholarship to a prestigious private school. Her academic gifts are so far beyond those of her fellow students that eventually she's given a special oral exam to make sure she's not cheating. (She's not.) Playing out against the background of Kimberly's fairly predictable school success (she winds up going to Yale on full scholarship and then to Harvard medical school) are the stages of her development, which include interactions with Matt, her hunky Chinese-American boyfriend, who works at the factory, drops out of school and wants to provide for her; Curt, her hunky Anglo boyfriend, who's dumb but sweet; and Annette, her loyal friend from the time they're in sixth grade. Throughout the stress of adolescence, Kimberly must also negotiate the tension between her mother's embarrassing old-world ways and the allurement of American culture.

        A straightforward and pleasant, if somewhat predictable narrative, marred in part by an ending that too blatantly tugs at the heartstrings.

        (COPYRIGHT (2010) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

      • premium: True
      • source: Library Journal
      • content:

        February 15, 2010
        Living in squalor among rats and roaches in a virtually abandoned unheated apartment building in Brooklyn, NY, 11-year-old Kimberly Chang narrates how, after recently immigrating from Hong Kong, she and her mother strive to eke out a life together working in an illegally run sweat shop. Though she was once the top-ranked pupil in her class in Hong Kong, Kimberly's English skills are so limited that she must struggle to keep up in school while still translating for her mother and attempting to hide the truth of her living situation from her well-to-do classmates and only true friend, Annette. Drawing on her own experiences as an immigrant from Hong Kong (though she herself went to Harvard and Columbia, while Kimberly earns a spot at Yale), Kwok adeptly captures the hardships of the immigrant experience and the strength of the human spirit to survive and even excel despite the odds. VERDICT Reminiscent of An Na's award-winning work for younger readers, "A Step from Heaven", this work will appeal to both adults and teens and is appropriate for larger public libraries, especially those serving large Asian American populations.Shirley N. Quan, Orange Cty. Lib., Santa Ana, CA

        Copyright 2010 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

      • premium: True
      • source: Booklist
      • content:

        April 1, 2010
        Drawing on Kwoks personal experience, this debut novel tells a contemporary immigration story of heartbreaking struggle and wild success. Ah Kim, 11, leaves Hong Kong in the 1980s and moves with Ma into a freezing Brooklyn slum apartment infested with roaches and rats. The hostile teacher calls Kimberly a cheat when she gets good grades. After school, she helps Ma reach her quota in a clothing factory in Chinatown, sometimes until midnight. In simple, searing, richly detailed prose, Kwok captures the anguish of the struggle, including the illegal factory work and child labor, but eventually, as fortunes change, the novel becomes a rags-to-riches story (Kimberly gets into a top high school and then Yale). Success, however, brings the universal immigrant lament of not fitting in. Kim cannot get the rules of fighting and flirting, and her misunderstandings are both hilarious and wrenching. I wanted to be part of things but I had no idea how. And, always, there are those who dont make it. Immigrants, new and old, will find much to savor here, from the drama of family secrets to the confusing coming-of-age.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)

      • premium: True
      • source: Publisher's Weekly
      • content:

        Starred review from July 26, 2010
        This audiobook is the perfect match of narrator and material. Grayce Wey's performance as immigrant Kimberly Chang feels absolutely authentic. As the adult Kimberly looking back at her life, Wey has just a touch of a Chinese accent (appropriate for a character who's lived in America for two decades), and her tone conveys bittersweet regret even while knowing she made the right choice. But when speaking as the younger, newly arrived Kimberly, Wey's Chinese accent is much heavier, and we can hear Kimberly's confusion, anxiety, and struggle to adjust to this new culture. Wey perfectly evokes Kimberly's growing assertiveness and determination, her teenage longing, joy, and pain when falling in love for the first time, and her conflicted feelings when making difficult decisions about her path in life. A moving and memorable listen. A Riverhead hardcover (Reviews, Mar. 15).

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shortDescription
From the author of Searching for Sylvie Lee, the iconic, New York Times-bestselling debut novel that introduced an important Chinese-American voice with an inspiring story of an immigrant girl forced to choose between two worlds and two futures. 
When Kimberly Chang and her mother emigrate from Hong Kong to Brooklyn squalor, she quickly begins a secret double life: exceptional schoolgirl during the day, Chinatown sweatshop worker in the evenings. Disguising the more difficult truths of her life—like the staggering degree of her poverty, the weight of her family's future resting on her shoulders, or her secret love for a factory boy who shares none of her talent or ambition—Kimberly learns to constantly translate not just her language but herself back and forth between the worlds she straddles.
Through Kimberly's story, author Jean Kwok, who also emigrated from Hong Kong as a young girl, brings to the page the lives of countless...
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      • description: Fiction / Literary
      • code: FIC043000
      • description: Fiction / Coming of Age
      • code: FIC054000
      • description: FICTION / Asian American & Pacific Islander