By: Kelly Yang
Rate: supreme
Mia Tang is a struggling 10-year-old girl in America who is an immigrant from China. Her family is very poor, and they struggle to find jobs. One day they find work in a motel owned by a monstrous man named Mr. Yao. Mia starts working at the front desk. Mr. Yao is very mean, and his son, Jason, goes to the same school as Mia. Mia has a very hard time. Her parents hide immigrants from China and if Mr. Yao finds out, her family will be doomed. She has many troubles. First of all, she wants to be a writer, but her mom says that she is just a bike in English, and the others are cars. Mia is very, very, insulted. Her mom wants her to just work on math. Second, at school Jason tells her that he likes her. Mia yells back that she doesn’t.
Mia’s best friend, Lupe, tells her that there are two “roller coasters”: one for rich people and one for the poor. It was like a cycle. If the parents are poor, the kids are poor, and so on. Mia realizes that she needed to get off the poor roller coaster. One day she finds an article stating that a couple were selling a hotel; people had to give $300 to enter an essay contest with the topic What would I do if I owned a motel. Mia decides to try it by getting secret tips from customers, but she doesn’t win and is very disappointed.
One day Mr. Yao announces that he wants to sell the hotel. Mia’s parents are very nervous, but Mia realizes that they could buy the motel if they got investments from poorer people! She first receives money from the “weeklies” her friends in the motel that live there for a long time. Then, she gets money from customers. Finally, she writes a letter to the people who also entered the contest in which you had to write an essay to win a motel and asks them to invest. Slowly, she gains $300,000, enough to buy the motel. When Mia’s family finally gets the motel, they are very happy and jump inside the pool which Mia was once not allowed in. When Mia jumps in, she is holding Jason’s hand after apologizing. Hank, one of the weeklies, takes a “picture” under Mia’s mom’s request. Mia’s mom likes to take fake pictures in her mind to remember significant events. I love this story.
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