Our read-aloud novel is a bit of a ‘historical’ fiction… the story is set at the beginning of the pandemic (March 2020). Think back to what we were thinking and feeling back then. This story follows Knox, whose family moves from Hong Kong to American during the early stages of the pandemic. Knox has to deal with leaving his dad and dog behind in Hong Kong, worrying about his family’s money troubles, tackling his learning differences, finding his identity as a Chinese-American, and standing up against anti-Asian racism at his new school. On top of all of that, his older brother Bowen is always getting on Knox’s case.
This new book is from Kelly Yang, who wrote the Front Desk series (one of our favourites from last year)!
Some questions to consider at home:
- If you could send a message to yourself in March 2020, what would you say?
- Do you think that there will be lots of stories (and even textbooks) set during the pandemic in the future? Are we living during an important time in history?
- Have you ever witnessed discrimination or prejudice?
If you want to watch Kelly Yang reading a chapter of her newest novel, watch the video below: