New From Here by Kelly Yang

New from Here looks at the recent pandemic through the perspective of an Asian-American family hoping to escape the virus in California.

New from Here by Kelly Yang. Simon & Shuster, 2022, 368 pages.

Reading Level: Middle Grades, ages 10-12

Recommended for: ages 10-14

Safety first

Knox Wei-Evans was named for Knox Beach, in northern California. It’s an unusual name in Hong Kong, where he lives with his family, but his is an unusual family: Asian mom raised in the US, white dad, two siblings (big brother Bowen and irrepressible little sister Lea). The family spends much of every summer in the States, but Knox never imagined living there. However, with this new corona virus raising concerns in China, Mom is convinced she and the kids would be safer in California until it blows over. She can work from home, but Dad had better stay in Hong Kong to keep up his law practice.

Knox is devastated: leave his best friend behind? Dad is one of the few who understands Knox’s blurting-out-inappropriate-comments problem and acting-without-thinking problem. How many people are going to understand him in California?

It seemed like a good idea at the time

That’s only the beginning, though. Shortly after arriving in the States, Mom loses her job and funds are cut in half. Worse, they’re without health insurance and the virus seems to be popping up in the Northwest. Bowen, their academic star, isn’t happy with his public school and Lea, for the first time in her life, has trouble making friends. And their neighbors are beginning to look askance at Asians, out of growing fear of this new “Chinese virus.”

Kelly Yang, who drew from childhood experience in Front Desk, uses her adult-mom experience for this story. She too moved her family from Hong Kong to California, leaving a husband behind. She too experienced racism from the neighbors, as well as saw it in the evening news. But New from Here rounds out to a satisfying conclusion (as I hope it did in real life), with plenty of humor and warm family feeling. Knox has a way of “helping” that leads to further complication, and the kids’ schemes to get their father to join them are unintentionally hilarious (one involving dinosaur suits). But in the end, we agree wholeheartedly with Knox: families are supposed to be together.

Overall Rating: 4 (out of 5)

• Worldview/moral value: 3.5
• Artistic/literary value: 4.5

Consideration:

• There are about five misuses of God’s name, mostly from the parents.
• The narrative veers to the left when dealing with racism. Ugly racial incident occur in the book, as in real life, but the family addresses it mostly with slogans and posters, e.g., Black Lives Matter. Also references to Hispanic people as “Latinx.”

Read more about our ratings here.                 

Also at Redeemed Reader:

• Review: God’s Very Good Idea (starred review) shows how racial harmony can be achieved under heaven.

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