Traveling with her mother, Mimi arrives in Karachi, Pakistan, for a summer with her grandparents, previously known only from awkward Skype visits. Meanwhile, Sakina, who helps her father cook for Mimi's grandparents, receives word that she can attend school only if her English-language skills improve. The girls' first encounters are rocky, but each needs something that the other provides (practice in English for Sakina, a guide to Karachi for Mimi). Despite occasional friction and misunderstandings, they gradually form a bond. Mimi keeps a journal, written as a letter to her estranged father, who left when she was five. Learning that he's in Karachi, she's determined to find him, whatever the outcome. Born in Karachi, Faruqi writes in first person, with chapters alternating between Mimi's and Sakina's points of view, with each revealing misconceptions about the other's culture. As they learn from their differences and similarities, the narrative is enriched by the dual perspective. The inviting book-jacket image suggests the story's distinctive setting, the girls' backgrounds, and their relationship, three fundamental elements of this engaging chapter book.

Issues of home and belonging form the cornerstones of Faruqi's (author of the Yasmin early chapter books) first solo middle-grade novel. Mimi and her mother (her father left the family when Mimi was very young) are on a "forced vacation" from Houston to Pakistan to visit Mimi's only-seen-on-Skype grandparents. There she meets Sakina, the family cook's daughter, who dreams of a future that hinges on passing an English test to secure admission to school. The girls' initial hesitation gives way to a tentative friendship through summer afternoons spent learning English and Urdu, tasting mangoes, dealing with errant centipedes, and exploring Karachi together. Mimi, already at odds with her mother, is privy to Mom's prickly relationship with her own parents, and the family drama is heightened as secrets about Mimi's father are revealed. Told through the girls' alternating points of view, the novel examines contemporary urban Pakistan in all its complexity. Faruqi threads issues of privilege, poverty, democracy, and the meaning of family throughout the book. She manages to convey the realities of Sakina's hardscrabble life and Mimi's sense of abandonment without being heavy-handed. The author's note and glossary give a sense of Faruqi's personal connection to the city and its characters. Sadaf Siddique

When 11-year-old Houston native Mimi Scotts lands with her mother in Karachi, Pakistan, for summer vacation, she's not sure what to expect-especially from her Pakistani grandparents, whom she is meeting for the first time.Mimi's mother grows increasingly distracted and distant as she navigates the fallout of her failed marriage to Mimi's White father. Mimi grounds herself by writing to her estranged father in her journal. Although most servants in Mimi's grandparents' enormous house are excited about the American arrivals, Sakina Ejaz, a girl Mimi's age who works as an assistant to her head cook father, couldn't care less. Between her family's poverty and her father's diabetes, she has enough to worry about. But when Mimi agrees to help Sakina pass an English exam to achieve her dream of earning a scholarship and attending school for the first time, the two strike up a friendship greater than the differences in class and nationality that divide them. Together, they weather Mimi's family secrets, Sakina's pursuit of her dreams, and the sometimes-violent lead-up to an upcoming election. Faruqi's descriptions of modern Karachi are rich with sensory detail, and her exploration of Mimi's complicated feelings about her father make for a beautifully layered character arc. Sakina, however, feels defined almost entirely by her poverty, flattening her story and making her character's development less satisfying.A thoughtful portrait of friendship across class lines in modern Pakistan. (Fiction. 9-14)