by Bette Bao Lord
Some of the main characters are Shirley Temple Wong, mother, father, Mabel, Emily, fourth cousin, precious coins, grandmother, and grandfather. The story starts out, when awaiting marriage, the servant trips over beans and breaks a bowl and blames it on Shirley. She sends her to grandmother and Shirley thinks she is trouble, but grandmother just wanted to tell her her father wanted her and her mother to go to America to meet him.
During the Chinese New Year celebration, right after grandfather tells the stories, Shirley thinks of two American names: Uncle Sam and Shirley Temple. They all like Shirley Temple best, so that is how she got the name Shirley. When she gets to America she finds it hard to make friends. One kid, the bully, (named Mabel), got so mad at her that she gave Shirley two black eyes. But in the end, Mabel turns out to be one of Shirley's best friends and they met through stickball (baseball).
Later on, Shirley meets a girl named Emily. They become true friends with Emily's secret (I'll let you read it to find out the secret). Shirley learns how to play the piano and strongly dislikes it. In the end, Shirley loves America. Emily is elected to represent the sixth grade in a Christmas assembly. When they find out that the person in Emily's position gets to meet Jackie Robinson, Emily says Shirley knows a lot more about baseball and she should be the one to meet him. So Shirley gets to talk to Jackie and give him the gold key to their school.
The moral of the story is change can be good and not always bad. I think anybody would like to read this book.
