Isabel in Bloom
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A girl discovers a connection between her home in the Philippines and her new home in the U.S. through a special garden in this middle grade novel that celebrates nourishment and growth.
Twelve-year-old Isabel is the new kid in her San Francisco middle school. It’s the first time in many years that she’ll be living with her mother again. Mama's job in the US allowed Isabel and her grandparents to live more comfortably in the Philippines, but now Isabel doesn't really know her own mother anymore.
Making new friends in a new city, a new country, is hard, but joining the gardening and cooking club at school means Isabel will begin to find her way, and maybe she too, will begin to bloom.
In this beautifully rendered novel-in-verse, Mae Respicio explores how growth can take many forms, offering both the challenges and joy of new beginnings.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Understated verse and other poetic forms shape this reassuring 1999-set story of a persevering Filipina tween adapting to a new life. Twelve-year-old Isabel Ligaya lives with her jasmine-growing grand-parents in the rural Philippines. She was seven when her mother left for lucrative domestic work in America; now, after earning a nursing degree, Mama makes plans for Isabel to move to California. Her grandfather's advice ("When things feel hard/ find the familiar./ The people/ places/ things/ that feel like/ home") and her grandmother's gift of a tiny glass bottle of soothing jasmine scent provide comfort. In San Francisco, she feels abandoned by her mother, who's busy job-seeking and apartment-hunting, and when Isabel tries befriending classmate Melissa, who is also Filipina, Melissa's friend Ashley swipes Isabel's jasmine bottle and declares the contents "gross." But soon Isabel discovers the school's neglected garden, and tending to its ailing plants, as well as frequenting a welcoming Culinary Club and Asian American Senior Center, help her establish new friendships and a sense of purpose. Respicio (How to Win a Slime War) examines themes of racism, cultural heritage, and community building by focusing on positive occurrences in Isabel's life, throughout offering solutions that model helpful next steps for readers in similar circumstances. Supporting characters are intersectionally diverse. Ages 8–12.
