What made me want to read Front Desk by Kelly Yang was when I saw the cover. I worked at a library over the summer and to be honest, I didn’t find many book covers eye-catching. Even for chapter books and middle grade novels like Front Desk, a lot can look the same. But this cover made me interested because of the unique style. It looks fresh and new, but not generic and the same can be said about the story. I love the way the main character, Mia, is drawn because it draws you into the book’s premise right away.
Ten year-old Mia and her parents are Chinese immigrants and are looking for a new job. They find work at a motel called the Calivista, run by the seemingly nice owner Mr. Yao. However, Mia is needed too and works by letting guests in at the front desk. The job doesn’t pay as much as they expect, and Mia is learning to overcome expectations.
My experience/Technologies
I was only able to read up to chapter 6, but I can tell the basics of what the story is setting up. I did feel a little confusion with one part mentioned early on in the book.
“My mother’s face crumpled when she saw her picture. She pleaded with the guy to take another one . . . I thought she was going to cry,” (Yang 15).
This happened when Mia’s family visited the Houston space center while they were still getting their footing in America. During this time they lived in their car, would take advantage of any place that had free admission and air conditioning, and only had enough money to share one hamburger as a family of three. Mia’s mom used to be an engineer in China, and took Mia to see all of the rocket exhibits. They came across a cutout of an astronaut with someone to take their picture of them in it, and Mia decided to photobomb her mom’s turn. Mia’s mom was very upset about her picture being effectively ruined, and they didn’t have a chance to take another. Mia is incredibly guilty about this and expresses that she would do anything to go back in time to let them have another chance.
At first this confused me because I wondered how this would come across to the young audiences this book is meant for. I tried to think like I was Mia’s age and be immersed in how she felt. When I was ten, I can think of a few examples of my mom being mad at me and not knowing why. I realized that this must have been given to young readers to put them in Mia’s shoes. At that age, especially for middle grade novels, I believe kids are just at the cusp of understanding deeper issues. I assume that Mia’s mom was upset over her photo because being an astronaut was her dream that she had to leave behind, likely for Mia’s sake. While we aren’t explicitly told why they immigrated as far as I’ve read yet, they do make it very clear of their high expectations of the US.
Another experience I had is something I don’t think is in Wondercat, but I felt this kind of resembled partial dopamine. But kind of the opposite. At the start, I realized this is the first piece I’ve read that has a character in deep with the expectation of the American dream. I love the first line of the novel for this:
“My parents told me that America would be this amazing place where we could live in a house with a dog, do whatever we want, and eat hamburgers till we were red in the face,” (Yang 13).
Even though this book is written for older kids to understand, I still think the author lays it on thick with the family’s expectations. And despite being amidst the intense and real struggle of trying to find employment, they still hold onto this dream. This made me really overly-anticipate what was going to happen, because I knew this poor family was going to be taken advantage of and everything would get worse for them. I knew that things weren’t going to be as good as Mia hoped. It got to the point that I almost grew a little frustrated seeing the parents sign Mr. Yao’s contract immediately, for a job that seemed and was too good to be true. But then again, I couldn’t rationally be too mad at them because they’re just trying to survive in a new country. I was just waiting for everything to fall apart.
Though my expectations were subverted, especially when Mia is taken on a tour of her new school. She asks her mom:
“Hey, why’d you have to tell the principal I just got here from China?”
“So she’d cut you some slack,” (Yang 36).
Mia is bilingual and is still learning English. We learn that she has been in the US for two years, and is very self-conscious of her skills in English. We see a flashback of Mia in her fourth grade classroom, feeling embarrassed for never being one of the top scores in her class’s spelling tests which were always rewarded. She describes it as having missed out on a secret club. But I found it interesting that Mia’s mother wants to keep up the narrative that they just got here, which I believe would be a secret discloser moment when readers learn how long the family has truly been in America.
This shows that the mother is very aware of Mia being considered “behind” in English, especially in comparison to Mr. Yao’s son, Jason. Jason is introduced briefly but Mr. Yao praises him for speaking fluent and native English, and Mia’s mother notes his lack of an accent. I felt really bad for Mia here, because instead of being truthful and having confidence in her skills, she becomes more self-conscious keeping up a lie that is meant to make her more acceptable. This is really sad, but I understand why the mother wants to do this. She doesn’t want Mia to seem as behind as she really is, so she wants to have a reason for her new school to be understanding.
