Tang, Betty C. Parachute Kids. Graphix. 2023. 978-1-338-83269-3. 288 p. $24.99. Grades 3-7.

It’s February, 1981. Feng-Li Lin is ecstatic to accompany her older brother, sister, Mama, and Baba on the family’s first trip to America! The best vacation ever takes an unexpected turn when Baba announces that he must return to Taiwan for work while the kids remain in California with their mother. The children enroll in school, and Feng-Li (Ann) begins fifth grade – and the process of learning English – at Mountain View Elementary. Weeks later, Mama reveals that her travel visa has expired, and she must also return to Taiwan. With the help of family friends, sister Jia-Xi (Jessie), brother Ke-Gāng (Jason), and Feng-Li will continue with school and do their best to run the household while managing a modest budget. When even the family friends relocate to another state, the three “parachute kids” must rely on each other not only to survive but succeed in school, learn a new language, and make new friends. However, complicated sibling dynamics, their undocumented status, and a series of big missteps threaten to tear them apart before the Lin family can be reunited. Author and illustrator Betty Tang depicts her characters with warmth and empathy, even when they make mistakes. She represents dialogue in Chinese with red text and English with black text. It’s an effective technique that allows readers to experience the challenges of communicating in a new language. 

THOUGHTS: Parachute Kids is a stellar graphic novel with similar themes to Robin Ha’s Almost American Girl and Kelly Yang’s New from Here. Tang writes in her Author’s Note that this is “not a memoir, but a mixture of fiction, my family’s first experiences in America, and anecdotes of immigrant friends I met along the way.” It deserves to be widely read and will become a favorite of many readers!

Graphic Novel