*Red Butterfly by A. L. Sonnischen

*Red Butterfly by A. L. Sonnischen. Simon & Shuster, 2015, 392 pages

Reading Level: Middle Grades, ages 10-12
Recommended for: ages 12-15

Bottom line: In Red Butterfly, a Chinese girl raised by American parents must figure out who she really is after discovering she has no official identity.

Kara, age 11, speaks English as well as any American because her parents are American. But she’s obviously Chinese, and Tianjin, China, is where she lives, in a small walkup with her gray-haired American mama who seldom ventures outside. She sees the world through books: Icy wind carve blood-patterns/ on my knuckles/ but thinking of all those words/ in hiding,/ waiting to be real, makes my brain fizzy,/ my heart warm. She and Mama live on remittance checks from Montana, where Daddy lives, but sometimes the checks don’t come. Lately that’s been happening a lot, forcing Mama to sell items so they can eat. Kara wonders about that, and also wonders why she’s never gone to school and why she speaks better English than Chinese. Something has to give, and it finally does when Kara’s stepsister Jody comes for a long visit. On the day of her departure, Jody has a pulmonary thrombosis that lands her in the hospital and forces Mama out in the open. It turns out that Mama is in China illegally—all for Kara, whom she rescued as an abandoned infant on the street. (China’s one-child policy is at fault, for Kara’s biological parents obviously wanted a boy.) The girl has no official identity and her future is in limbo.

Kara is in a unique position to pose the age-old juvenile question, Who am I? Identity is a conundrum every young person faces: how much of me is my parents, my nation, my preferences? How do I figure that out? Kara is starting to figure things out and make distinctions, and like many kids, she’s very self-centered. Events force her to grow up faster than most children her age, but bad news leads to the good result of getting out of herself and learning to deal with circumstances she never expected or wished. The happy ending may seem a little too smooth and quick, but the verse format interposes contemplation. Though marketed to middle graders, young teens will appreciate Kara’s struggles and her beautiful voice.

Cautions: None

Overall rating: 5

• Worldview/moral value: 4.5
• Artistic value: 5

Categories: Realistic Fiction, Verse Novels, Middle Grades, Young Adult, Starred Review, Character Values, Life Issues