DECEMBER 2022 - AudioFile
This children’s story is set in Compestine's hometown of Wuhan at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Nancy Wu masterfully narrates the experience of 13-year-old Mei as the young teen grieves the loss of her late mother and misses her father, who works virtually nonstop at the hospital, helping patients with a mysterious disease. Wu captures the anger born from fear that Mei's father feels when Mei naïvely visits him at work to ask for medicine for her friend's sick grandmother and then quickly shifts to remorse as he hands her a mask and sends her home. Wu maintains an eerily composed calm as Wuhan is shut down, leaving Mei alone to play computer games and cook food for neighbors. Chapter titles are read in Chinese and English. Listeners will reflect on their own Covid experiences while enjoying Mei's story. S.D.B. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine
From the Publisher
"American middle schoolers may not have given much thought to the origins of the current pandemic, so this makes a useful . . . reminder that worry, food management, social isolation, and short tempers are shared globally. So too, however, are creative thinking and volunteerism, and Compestine tacitly suggests the best way to help is with your own passion and skill set." — Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books
"A unique and poignant tale about the early days in epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic. . . . In addition to eliciting hope and compassion, Compestine’s creative and genuine storytelling offers up numerous windows into Chinese culture." — Booklist
"The simple story is a bridge builder across geography and culture, universal in its themes of family and community through the global pandemic, encouraging empathy, introspection, and optimism. . . . Endearing, hopeful, and sure to make your mouth water." — Kirkus Reviews
DECEMBER 2022 - AudioFile
This children’s story is set in Compestine's hometown of Wuhan at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Nancy Wu masterfully narrates the experience of 13-year-old Mei as the young teen grieves the loss of her late mother and misses her father, who works virtually nonstop at the hospital, helping patients with a mysterious disease. Wu captures the anger born from fear that Mei's father feels when Mei naïvely visits him at work to ask for medicine for her friend's sick grandmother and then quickly shifts to remorse as he hands her a mask and sends her home. Wu maintains an eerily composed calm as Wuhan is shut down, leaving Mei alone to play computer games and cook food for neighbors. Chapter titles are read in Chinese and English. Listeners will reflect on their own Covid experiences while enjoying Mei's story. S.D.B. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2022-09-28
A pandemic story told through the eyes of a girl growing up in Wuhan, China, author Compestine’s own hometown.
Grieving her mother’s death and with Father busy working as a physician at a major hospital, 13-year-old Mei often finds herself home alone. She fills the solitude with her favorite pastime: cooking. When she isn’t busy in her apartment kitchen, she jumps into her virtual one in the computer game Chop Chop. There, she and her teammates’ key strokes and culinary knowledge fend off zombie invaders by making sure the soldiers are well fed to fight. Mei’s virtual escape soon becomes all too real, though it is not zombies that threaten but the new airborne viral disease the world will come to know as Covid-19. As the city enters lockdown and neighbors fall ill, Mei joins forces with her gamer friends to prepare meals and coordinate food deliveries to their neighborhoods. All the while, Mei’s own anxieties simmer on the back burner: Is her father safe working at the hospital? Does her Aunty hate her for choosing to stay with Father? Readers who have lived through the pandemic over the last few years will surely identify with Mei’s worries and hopes for a brighter post-pandemic future. The simple story is a bridge builder across geography and culture, universal in its themes of family and community through the global pandemic, encouraging empathy, introspection, and optimism.
Endearing, hopeful, and sure to make your mouth water. (recipes, cooking glossary, information on cutting techniques, author’s note) (Fiction. 8-12)
