Despair and hope mingle in this free-verse novel set in the Angel Island detention center in 1924.The destruction of birth records as a result of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake meant that immigrants from China could attempt to elude the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act by claiming to be related to Chinese residents already in the U.S. Seventeen-year-old T.G., who's arrived with his father and grandfather, is one of many people shuffled off to the barracks. There, he waits for his interview with an immigration officer who will scrutinize his "paper story." The living conditions are unpleasant: The men sleep in cramped rooms, consume tasteless meals, and suffer at the hands of callous guards. Carved into the walls around them are poems composed by those who came before, expressing the same longing and misery felt by T.G. and his fellow immigrants. Day after day, T.G.'s father exhorts him to "jab the awl," a phrase that evokes focus and self-discipline. But when T.G. stumbles upon a clandestine meeting of the Resistance-men seeking to effect change in the barracks-he decides to join their cause despite the risks of upsetting the status quo. The limited setting and the repetitive nature of each day in the barracks establish a distinct sense of place with a restrictive atmosphere. Moments of levity and genuine human connection ease the often bleak mood.A vivid depiction of a lesser-known chapter in U.S history. (historical note, resources) (Verse historical fiction. 14-18)

Gr 9 Up —Digital artist, writer, and poet Ng's verse novel illuminates the immigration process for Chinese immigrants to the United States in the 1920s after the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act. Tai Go, 17, has no desire to immigrate to the United States, but he obediently goes with his father and grandfather. They make it across the ocean safely and are questioned and detained in California at Angel Island, an immigration station in the San Francisco Bay. The three have paper identities, posing as people they are not, to get into the country, and endure months of harsh and cruel detainment. It is during this incarceration that Tai Go meets new friends, sees a girl he likes, and becomes a member of the Resistance, a group of detainees who protest how they are being treated—and discovers the poetry of fellow Chinese who were detained before him. He is surprised how the poetry of those who he will never meet moves him. VERDICT This historical novel in verse is superb, conveying the magnitude of disrespect, hatred, and racist practices Chinese immigrants had to endure.—Laura Ellis