PARACHUTE KIDS

PARACHUTE KIDS by Betty C. Tang

"Parachute Kid" was not a term I was familiar with, so I looked it up. A Parachute Kid is an underage child (or children) who is from Asia whose parents drop them off in a different country to live with friends or family while the parents go back to their home country to live. In the case of this graphic novel, the parents are from Taiwan and they bring their children to California to live. What comes about is a complete crash course into a new culture, language, etc for Feng-li and her siblings without the steadying hand of their parents. The book is honestly very heartbreaking as each child tries to find their place. They are taken advantage of, make poor decisions, and turn on each other at different times. When you reach the end of the book the Author's Note explains that she and her siblings were parachute children. This is not her story, but part fiction and part stories of fellow parachute children rolled together. For a long time she was angry at her parents, but later came to understand, and even appreciate, the hard decisions they made.

HEADS UP- Feng-li's brother is attracted to boys and attempts to kiss one which causes a huge accident to happen. You get a bit of his back story in Taiwan where he attempted to kiss a boy there and the teacher called his mother. The mother encourages her son to keep it to himself so he won't have a difficult life.