Lensey Namioka,
April and the Dragon Lady
Harcourt Paperbacks, 2007.

Ages 12 +

Sixteen-year-old April Chen is an American girl, and she knows it.  This doesn’t mean she rejects her Chinese family and heritage, but April, unlike her grandmother who lives with the family, understands that she has a wide array of choices and opportunities before her and she is ready to embrace them.

April is fortunate that her father is an open-minded man who is as proud of his daughter as he is of April’s older brother, Harry.  Still, he is steeped in tradition and easily influenced by his aging mother, who makes no secret of her favoritism not only for Harry over April but also for her younger son over April’s father.  Nevertheless,  April’s father, as the oldest son, is duty-bound to support his mother in her old age; and April, as the only other female in the house, is duty-bound to care for her: a task that is becoming increasingly difficult as her grandmother’s behavior grows more unpredictable.

April resents the impact that caring for her grandmother has on her school and social life.  She also resents her brother for not helping out more.  At the same time, April respects and admires this strong woman whose courage helped her survive a war, emigrate to a new country, and once, when April was a child, step between her and a snarling dog.  April is fiercely protective when accompanying her grandmother to an appointment at a Western doctor’s office and laughs with her later about giving the patronizing nurse a hard time.  But when her grandmother tries to interfere in April’s future and stands in the way of a budding romance between  her father, a widower,  and a modern, independent Chinese American woman, April will not stand for it.

Lensey Namioka (Ties that Bind, Ties that Break) has done a fine job of telling this story of a young woman’s ambivalence about growing up as the first generation American-born daughter in a Chinese family.  Drawing on the strengths of both cultures, April is able to reconcile her love for her grandmother with her determination to shape her own life.